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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Follow Co-hosts On Instagram:

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:

Check Out the Bookwild Substack

Subscribe to Bookwild on YouTube

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Follow @imbookwild on Instagram

Check Out Author Social Media Packages

Follow Co-hosts On Instagram:

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:

Check Out the Bookwild Substack

Subscribe to Bookwild on YouTube

Get Bookwild Merch

Follow @imbookwild on Instagram

Check Out Author Social Media Packages

Follow Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor