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.

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

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Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

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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

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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.

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

This week, Gare and I talk with Amy Chozick about her suspenseful literary debut With Friends Like You!

Short Synopsis

Emily, an exhausted new mother in Manhattan, becomes obsessed with finding her long-lost college roommate Daisy, whose mysterious disappearance has haunted her for years. When Daisy suddenly reappears and pulls Emily into a seductive new world of friendship and community, their reunion begins to crack, forcing Emily to question whether Daisy is saving her—or unraveling her life.

Listen to hear about:

• The real-life experiences that inspired With Friends Like You — including Amy Chozick’s journalism career, new motherhood, and the college roommate who helped inspire Daisy’s story.
• Why female friendship is really the heart of the novel, from intense, almost romantic bonds to codependency, friendship breakups, and those friends you never completely stop thinking about.
• Motherhood, identity, and the pressure to rediscover yourself during the major transitions that can make you wonder who you are now.
• The book’s sharp critique of capitalism and the motherhood industry, including why all those over-the-top baby product names were a deliberate commentary on consumerism and the loss of community.
• How Amy crafted the book’s voice, twists, and upcoming screen adaptation — including her “if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it” philosophy and how adapting the novel actually influenced the finished book.

All the Bookwild Links:

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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 Andre Hardy about his fresh take on noir in his debut novel Tear the City Down!

Listen to hear about:

• How Andre Hardy’s debut novel, Tear the City Down, grew from his lifelong love of noir—particularly Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress, which showed him a fully realized Black protagonist in a genre he already loved.
• The ways Hardy uses San Diego’s stark dualities—tourist paradise versus underserved neighborhoods, enormous wealth versus systemic oppression—as the foundation for Coltrane's story and the novel’s larger questions about social mobility, morality, and what happens when you actually reach the top.
• Why Hardy shied away from a traditional stoic noir hero, and created Coltrane to be masculine, dangerous, and deeply vulnerable.
• How the mystery expands from one missing girl into something far larger, illustrating Hardy’s belief that seemingly isolated injustices often lead back to systems of power and exploitation.
• How Hardy drew on his own NFL experience, love of jazz, reading, and upbringing in San Diego to give the novel its texture.

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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 Keith Giles, David Agranoff, Brian Evenson, Gordon Bonnet, and Andrew Turck about Pink Beam Press, a new speculative-fiction imprint inspired by Philip K. Dick and the strange, reality-bending possibilities of science fiction.

Listen to hear about:

• The origins of Pink Beam Press and how Philip K. Dick’s legendary “pink beam” experience helped inspire its identity and mission.
• Why speculative fiction is such a powerful way to explore reality, consciousness, identity, technology, privacy, and other big philosophical questions.
• How the authors behind Pink Beam’s novellas transform wildly different concepts—from digital replicas and mind reading to cyberpunk technology and artificial realities—into deeply human stories.
• Why writing shorter doesn’t necessarily mean easier, and how the novella forces writers to crystallize their ideas while still leaving room for complex characters and themes.
• How research, personal experiences, literary influences, and unexpected discoveries during the writing process shape stories—and why sometimes the best fiction teaches the writer something, too.

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 and I share fall book releases we are excited about!

Kate’s Books

The Occidental Book of the Dead by T. Geronimo Johnson

Have You Seen Romit? By Chital Mehta

It Looks Like You in the Dark by Mathilda Zeller

The Turning of Sally Mae by Nuzo Onoh

Lethal Kiss by Taylor Grothe

Gare’s Books

The Little Red House Liv Andersson

Killing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar

The Witch by Freida McFadden

This B Just Won’t Die by Tanya Pell

All the Little Secrets by May Cobb

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