This week, Gare catches Steph and I up on his trip to the Montreal Mystery Festival, and we all share what we gravitate toward in books, movies and TV shows when we need a comfort story!

Books We Talked About

• Verity
• Hot Girl Murder Club
• We Used to Live Here
• Sublimation
• The Midnight Knock
• Jar of Hearts
• The Truth About Melody Browne
• The Spin

TV Shows We Talked About

• Orphan Black
• Severance
• The Vampire Diaries
• New Girl
• The Office
• Parks and Recreation
• Schitt's Creek

Movies We Talked About

• Basic Instinct
• Oddity
• Cape Fear
• Black Christmas
• Verity
• Scream
• I Know What You Did Last Summer
• 10 Things I Hate About You

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Other Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

This week, I talk with CJ Leede about her new horror novel Headlights!

Listen to hear about:

• How CJ originally planned to become a medieval historian, but after a professor helped her discover storytelling was what she wanted to pursue.
• How Headlights began with the idea of people waking up on the side of a highway wearing the skin of strangers, and evolved into a story about grief, mortality, family legacy, and the search for meaning.
• Why Leede treats setting as a character, using Colorado's beauty, danger, wildlife, and landscapes as metaphors for the novel's larger themes about life, death, and the unknown.
• How the novel contains investigative thriller and horror elements, but is really a book about confronting sadness, loss, and the things we cannot outrun within ourselves.
• Why horror can uniquely encompass mysteries, romance, literary fiction, supernatural stories, social commentary, and psychological explorations, making it one of the broadest and most creative genres available.

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Other Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

This week, Emma West joins and shares her reading journey, her favorite genres, and how she ended up the Inventory Manager at Wild Geese Books.

Listen to hear about:

• Emma's reading journey beginning as a substitute for formal education, and how she approached books as a way to keep learning and expanding her worldview.
• How both of us gravitate toward layered, "mind-bending" stories that require active engagement rather than straightforward "popcorn thrillers."
• How romance works best for uswhen it's about more than romance—family dynamics, grief, friendship, identity, or creative life make the emotional stakes richer.
• How books can explore identity, trauma, religion, immigration, and society through speculative or horror elements, with special praise for Sublimation and Yesteryear.
• Our shared obsession with Ashley Winstead, and how both of us now consider Hot Girl Murder Club our favorite book of hers!

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Other Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

In this episode, I talk with Isabel J. Kim about her debut speculative fiction, Sublimation!

Listen to hear about:

• How Isabel J. Kim's inspiration for Sublimation came from her own experience growing up between Korea and the United States and wondering how different her life might have been if she had stayed in Korea permanently.
• Why "instancing" (where you split into two people when you cross a border) worked so well as a speculative framework to explore identity, immigration, belonging, and the ways environment shapes who we become over time.
• The process of expanding her short story into a novel, which required adding new perspectives and characters to show that different people would experience the phenomenon of instancing in radically different ways.
• How she chose to approach borders as both physical and social constructs, examining how governments, corporations, immigration systems, and personal choices all influence identity and belonging.
• Why speculative fiction often isn't really about the future—it uses imagined worlds to examine present-day social, political, and cultural tensions through a different lens.

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Other Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

MacKenzie Green is back, and she's now the Global Head of Social for Audible!

Listen to hear about:

• How MacKenzie grew up dyslexic, relied heavily on audiobooks to keep up in school, and never imagined she would one day become Head of Global Social at Audible.
• Why people should read what they actually enjoy, DNF books that aren't working, and use whatever format—audio, ebook, or print—helps them engage with stories.
• How asking people what they were reading helped her build relationships, conduct informational interviews, and create meaningful follow-up conversations throughout her career, which all culminated in her new job at Audible.
• How reading is a way to understand other perspectives, strengthen listening skills, and connect with people through shared stories, and how audiobooks are a return to the oldest form of storytelling: oral tradition.

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Other Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

In this episode, I talk with Promise Backlund about her book Gospel of Lies! She shares her experience growing up in evangelical Christianity, examining how fear, purity culture, certainty, and religious identity shaped her childhood and adult life. We dive into deconstruction, religious trauma, politics, sexuality, pleasure, and the complicated process of rebuilding meaning, identity, and awe outside of rigid belief systems.

Listen to hear about:

• How faith was woven into every part of both our childhoods—from sunsets to sickness—creating a worldview where God explained everything and fear explained the rest.
• How fear of hell, thought policing, and religious perfectionism can overlap with anxiety and OCD, especially when introduced during childhood.
• Deconstructing during the late 2010s and how political shifts exposed tensions between teachings of love and exclusion inside evangelical spaces.
• An examination of Biblical stories like Adam and Eve, questioning themes of obedience, curiosity, punishment, and whether religious narratives discourage questioning and self-trust.
• How purity culture, worship environments, and restricted access to secular art shaped identity—and how reclaiming pleasure, curiosity, art, and personal agency became part of healing.

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Other Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

This week, Erin Ashley is back, and we dive into all our thoughts and reactions to Patmenna Sabit's stunning debut novel Good People! THIS IS A SPOILER EPISODE.

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Other Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

This week, I talk with Sara Hamdan about her journey from finance and journalism into fiction, and how writing What Will People Think became a way to explore identity, belonging, family history, and the freedom to define yourself outside of expectations. Through conversations about comedy, Palestinian representation, women’s choices, historical memory, and the many forms of love, the episode explores how fiction can create connection and make complex experiences feel deeply human.

Listen to hear about:

• How moving from finance into journalism—and eventually fiction—helped her discover storytelling as both a craft and a way to explore her own family history and identity.
• Why stand-up comedy became central to the novel, including Sara’s real-life experience taking comedy classes to overcome public speaking anxiety and how humor can deliver difficult truths with softness.
• Code-switching, compartmentalizing identity, and the pressure many women feel to justify life choices—while emphasizing the importance of autonomy and becoming comfortable showing up as your full self.
• Fiction as a way to preserve cultural memory and show everyday life beyond headlines, using family stories, historical detail, and personal experiences to create empathy.

Check Out Author Social Media Packages

Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon

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Get Bookwild Merch

Follow @imbookwild on Instagram

Other Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba