Alright, y'all, we have another interview on our hands and this time with the inimitable Taylor Grothe! Taylor is a nonbinary author of both YA and adult horror, so I thought it would be great to chat with them about their upcoming release Lethal Kiss, which you should DEFINITELY BE READING when it releases October 20! Grab a Snickers and strap in!

• What was the biggest inspiration for writing Lethal Kiss, which features perhaps the hottest revenant to ever exist in the history of literature? I might be biased, though.

Hahaha thank you so much! I am very partial to Marcella myself!

The seed of Lethal Kiss came from my experience at university and in academia generally. I am who I am (i.e. a glutton for punishment and an overachiever) I decided to design my own major and focus on fairytales and folklore—and ended up focusing on the intersection between Nordic saga tradition and continental Arthurian romance. I went to Duke University, a school with a very fine Medieval Renaissance department, and spent a lot of time in the Rare Book Room researching old texts and holding medieval manuscripts in my hands. 

And yet, even though I really loved the work I was doing, I often felt roundly dismissed by the white cis male academic establishment. There was a sense that what I was doing was “girly” or unserious in scope. I had a particularly bad experience with a professor who ended up as the MedRen department dean. So you could say that this book comes from both a place of passion in medieval studies as well as absolute spite. I wanted to critique academic culture through a queer, hyper-femme lens.

• Cassie from Hollow was working through her autism diagnosis and how to be a person with it. Lacie seems to have a far better management system as an assistant professor. I know you've mentioned your own ASD before. When it comes to writing your characters, how do you determine how much of yourself you want to share in them?

It’s so important to me to have my characters be neurodivergent in general and autistic in particular. I don’t know, really, if I could write my characters as neurotypical. But, to your question: characters often come to me fully realized, so it’s not really a conscious choice. Their ASD is absolutely nonnegotiable in edits—all my editors are on notice from the outset! And while I like to think my characters all have parts of me in them, they really are just themselves. We’re all in a Venn diagram with ASD at the center.

• Did you model Marcella on any specific inspiration? I saw her as a perfect mashup of several of my favorite "mentor" characters, so I’m curious!

Let me be so real with you: I was like, what is the hottest I can make a character and get away with it, without making her feel like a pastiche? Lethal Kiss is satirical and campy, but I wanted Marcella to feel like she was the strongest, most aggressive, zero bullshit character I could—at least on the surface. I was really keeping my eye on Jennifer’s Body though; I love Megan Fox’s unhinged portrayal of Jennifer. 

• So your official debut was Hollow, a YA horror novel featuring autistic rep as well as LGBTQIA+ rep!
Which did you actually write first, Lethal Kiss or Hollow? If Hollow came first, did you know you wanted to break into the adult genre with horror as well?

I wrote Hollow first! But it had long been my goal to have a career both in YA and adult books, and the markets are very different, especially in horror. 

• If you could distill Lethal Kiss down to one song, what would it be?

An impossible question! I would say I Am Not a Woman, I’m a God by Halsey.

• Monstrous Beautiful Things is coming up next for you from Peachtree Teen and I know The Mage and the Liar Knight is coming out next summer. Are there any other novels in the works that you'd like to mention?

There are but I can only hint at one: my next Nightfire book! Think a grief horror in a haunted house plus mushrooms. It’s also a horror romance, but more literary.

LITERARY HAUNTED HOUSE HORROR PLUS MUSHROOMS???? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. Anyway, I sincerely hope you'll pick up all of Taylor book's because they are all amazing. I devoured Hollow in one sitting! Plus the rep in their books is incredible, and ahem that scene in Lethal Kiss...so good! I'm reading their next book Monstrous Beautiful Things on my Kindle now and y'all aren't ready!

Till next time!

Ryn

So I noticed that Rachel Harrison was asking about podcast interviews on her IG and was like "might as well shoot my shot" and see if I could get a short interview with her. And she responded! So please read below for a quick little interview in promotion of her upcoming September release Kiss Slay Replay.

· Without spoiling too much for future readers, what inspired you to write a time loop novel? Time loops actually really stress me out! I have bad anxiety, and the idea of being stuck causes me to panic. I wanted to confront that fear in a novel, working through it on the page in a way that was fun and cathartic.

· When it came to the time loop, how did you come up
with the ideas to make each loop distinct enough for Willa and the reader? Without giving too much away, it was a certainly a challenge to find the balance of having those classic nods to a time loop, repeating some dialogue, anticipating things happening, but in all my novels, it’s always more about the human thing than the supernatural thing. By focusing on Willa and her emotional journey, it (hopefully) helped me avoid getting too repetitive.

· You seem to have found a niche as a horror writer
who injects a lot of heart and humor into your books. What tips do you have for
writers who are looking to write horror with a bit of heart? It raises the stakes if your readers care about your characters. I don’t think it’s necessary to shy away from humor or heart just because of the horror label, I think those things enhance the horror. Write from the heart, be vulnerable on the page, and you’ll connect with readers on a whole other level. Terror and heart are not mutually exclusive.

· Who are your biggest inspirations when it comes to
writing, whether they be fellow horror writers, or directors, or authors of any
genre? Paul Tremblay is a big one, I really admire Paul. He stays true to himself in a way that’s really punk rock. He does something different every time, he doesn’t rest on his laurels, and I try to do the same.

· If you could sum up Kiss Slay Replay with one song, what song would that be and why? It’s too hard to pick just one! Help I’m Alive by Metric (which is the epigraph), Fleeting by Sarah Kinsley, Love Love Kiss Kiss by Alkaline Trio, and of course, Tubthumping by Chumbawamba. Lyrically, and vibes-wise, they're all perfect fits. 

Many thanks to Rachel for taking the time to answer my questions! Please consider ordering her upcoming book Kiss Slay Replay from our bookshop, Two Stories Bookshop, on Bookshop.org or on Libro.fm!

Till next time!

Hello, everyone! Happy New Release Tuesday, here are some releases we're excited for!

• Moss'd in Space by Rebecca Thorne (THIS IS PERFECT FOR MURDERBOT FANS)

• Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay (a master)

Hope you're all doing well!

Till next time!

-Ryn

Hello, everyone! Happy New Release Tuesday! Sorry for the late post, but here are some new releases we're excited for!

• The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus

• Tillinghast by Clare Cavenagh

I haven't been reading as much (hello, slump!) but I did find a copy of Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle so I'm reading that and it feels like the slump buster I've been looking for!

Till next time!

-Ryn

If you like horror, romance, and sapphics, then boy do I have the book for you. LETHAL KISS by Taylor Grothe (out October 20, 2026) is a horrormance with sapphic characters. It's also a monster romance, which was my first! I'm not generally a romance kinda person, but when you mix it with some horror and mystery, apparently it's right up my alley! Let's get into it.

WHAT WORKED (for me!):

• Characters

  • Marcella is DIVINE omg, step on me please

  • Lacie is adorable but also relatable

• Setting

  • Dark academia? Hell yeah

• Pacing

  • It didn't feel like it moved too fast or too slow!

• Spice

  • Okay so generally smut in published books gives me the ick for some reason but this was soooooo good.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK (for me!):

• Honestly? The only thing that didn't really work for me was the way Marcella called Lacie "little lamb" all the time. That was it. (I'm not a big fan of cutesy nicknames like that, babe works just as well lol)

Thank to Tor Nightfire for the e-ARC which I devoured in April on a business trip. This was just what I needed at that time and I loved every minute of it. I highly recommend for your spooky season line up and please consider ordering it from us!

Till next time!

Hello, all! Happy New Release Tuesday! There are a few great releases today, so let's jump in!

• Headlights by CJ Leede (Ryn's top read of the year so far!)

• It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo (******)

• Obstetrix by Naomi Kritzer

• The Other by Annie Neugebauer

• The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones by Lex Croucher

If you're in the Chicago area, Cynthia Pelayo will be in conversation tonight with Christina Henry about their two Peter Pan-inspired books at Bucket 'o' Blood at 6:30pm!

Recent reads include:

• It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo

• Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle

• He Will Have the World by David-Jack Fletcher

• Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm

• American Rapture by CJ Leede

• Phoning Faust by Sophia Mutiara Nova

I would recommend them all! My favorite recent read is a tie between It Came From Neverland and Our Cut of Salt, but I think they were all solid reads! Have you read any of the books mentioned above? If you want to pick them up, please use our Bookshop.org link!

Till next time!

-Ryn

Happy New Release Tuesday!

Here are some new releases we are excited for today!

• Phoning Faust by Sophia Mutiara Nova (***)

• Hunger & Thirst by Claire Fuller

• Marion by Leah Rowan

• Muñeca by Cynthia Gómez

• Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim

Phoning Faust was HEARTBREAKING and I recommend it! Not to mention Sophia is a super sweet person. All the others are TBR for me, but I'm excited for them nonetheless!

Have you read any of them? Please consider buying from our Bookshop.org shop!

Till next time!

-Ryn

Everyone has a first Tingle. This was mine! I tried Bury Our Gays and wasn't in the right mindspace so I dnf'd it, and had initially dnf'd this too! But I came back and I'm glad I did! So let's talk about it.

SUMMARY:

Four years ago, an unthinkable disaster occurred. In what was later known as the Low-Probability Event, eight million people were killed in a single day, each of them dying in improbable, bizarre ways: strangled by balloon ropes, torn apart by exploding manhole covers, attacked by a chimpanzee wielding a typewriter. A day of freak accidents that proved anything is possible, no matter the odds. Luck is real now, and it's not always good.

Vera, a former statistics and probability professor, lost everything that day, and she still struggles to make sense of the unbelievable catastrophe. To her, the LPE proved that the God of Order is dead and nothing matters anymore.

When Special Agent Layne shows up on Vera’s doorstep, she learns he's investigating a suspiciously—and statistically impossibly—lucky casino. He needs her help to prove the casino’s success is connected to the deaths of millions, and it's Vera's last chance to make sense of a world that doesn’t.

Because what's happening in Vegas isn't staying there, and she's the only thing that stands between the world and another deadly improbability.

WHAT WORKED (for me!):

• Characterization: I loved Vera's character. I also love her arc very much. I felt it was appropriate and well-structured!

• Pace: This is a borderline thing for me on this one because I do feel like the pace lagged a bit in the middle, but overall the pacing was good!

• Absurdity: LOVED IT. I need a movie version of this movie like stat.

WHAT DIDN'T (for me!):

• All the stats talk. I understand why, but dang. My focus drifted during those sections. I'm not a mathematician!

• The length. I think it could have been a bit shorter to help with the pacing issues I mentioned above.

BUY, BORROW, OR PASS?

I think this is one you can BUY. It's short at like 267 pages, the cover is gorgeous, and it's just enough of a whirlwind of a book to keep you entertained.

I'm eager to read his other two horror novels now, so I'm gonna be getting those as soon as I can. If you've read this one, what were your thoughts? If you haven't and you're looking for absurd horror (definitely different from humorous horror), then I recommend it!

Till next time!

-Ryn

Hello, everyone!

Happy New Release Tuesday! Here are some new releases we are excited about this week!

• Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir

• Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen

• Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer

• The Rainshadow Orphans by Naomi Ishiguro

Ryn has read Bone of My Bone and recommends it if you like historical horror that feels very Canterbury Tales-esque!

Happy Tuesday, till next time!

While The Return is Rachel Harrison's debut, it was not the first book I read that she'd authored. That distinction belongs to So Thirsty. I have now read three of her books (including Play Nice) and am in the midst of reading her upcoming release Kiss Slay Replay so let's talk about what worked in her debut, what didn't, and her evolution as a writer.

WHAT WORKED (for me anyway):

• Tone

  • It was eerie, it was full of dread, and I ate it up. Think like the same sort of odd dread from Twin Peaks? Or the vibes of Haunting of Hill House (show, not book).

• Setting

  • A rural bed and breakfast with creepy ass vibes? SIGN ME UP.

• Horror elements

  • Gross depictions of standard horror imagery, the came back wrong trope, and man I swear I could physically smell some of those scenes.

• General plot

  • Came back wrong will always work for me as well as grief horror.

WHAT DIDN'T (again, for me!):

• Pacing

  • Most debuts struggle with pacing, so I can't really fault her here. It felt like it could have been tightened up in a few places, but wasn't a main detractor.

• Characters

  • Her characters are GOD AWFUL people. Lord I would hate to be friends with ANY OF THEM. Communication is key to any friendship, folks, and this friendship had, like, none.

  • Elise as an FMC was extremely relatable though! I too worry about being the odd one out on a near-constant basis lol

BUY, BORROW, OR PASS?

BUY. I think this is worth having on your shelves if you're a horror fan like me. Not to mention Rachel Harrison's way of writing makes you blow straight through the pages. Her momentum is great! This was a strong debut, and if I'd read it first, I certainly would have added her to my list of authors to watch. As it is, So Thirsty solidified that spot almost instantaneously. Loved it!

I think her evolution as a writer clearly shows; she found her niche with horror that has a humorous touch. Her debut doesn't have this, but you'll find her later novels do and it really works!

Have you read anything by Rachel Harrison? What was your favorite, if you did? If you didn't, please consider clicking the book widgets and ordering from us!

Till next time!