Episode 498 || Annie Recommends: Campus Novels & Spooky Reads
This week on From the Front Porch, we have a new series: Annie Recommends! In this series, Annie curates a stack of books in a certain genre or theme for you – just as if you walked into our brick-and-mortar store, The Bookshelf. Sometimes, you just want a good book list.
This month, Annie recommends her favorite campus/dark academia novels and spooky reads. Plus, she’s curated two book flights for you to make your fall reading easy: a Spooky Reads Book Flight and a Dark Academia Book Flight.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search “Episode 498” to find the books mentioned in this episode), or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
Campus Novels:
We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
The Explanation for Everything by Lauren Grodstein
Honorable Mentions:
The Incendiaries by R. O. Kwon (unavailable to order)
Play for Me by Libby Hubscher
Spooky Reads:
Someone in the Attic by Andrea Marra
The Quiet Tenant by Clemence Michallon
What Happened to Nina by Dervla McTiernan
Knife River by Justine Champine
Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra
Annie's Spooky Reads Book Flight - $134
Annie's Dark Academia Book Flight - $89.95
From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.
Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
This week, Annie is reading Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt.
If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
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Our Executive Producers are...Jennifer Bannerton, Stephanie Dean, Linda Lee Drozt, Ashley Ferrell, Susan Hulings, Wendi Jenkins, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Gene Queens, Cammy Tidwell, and Amanda Whigham.
Transcript:
[squeaky porch swing]
Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.
[music plays out] “It is love and friendship, the sanctity and celebration of our relationships, that not only support a good life, but create one. Through friendships, we spark and inspire one another's ambitions.”
― Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety [as music fades out] I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week, I’m recommending some Spooky Reads and Campus Novels for your seasonal reading. Before we get started, a thank you to everyone who’s been leaving reviews for From the Front Porch. iTunes reviews and ratings are how new listeners can best find out about From the Front Porch and — as a result — find out about our indie bookstore, too. Here’s a recent review from Paula:
I have been a faithful listener since the beginning of From the Front Porch but I'm so lazy I've never written a review. (I have passed the word to many of my real life friends though). I never miss an episode. I'm playing along with my first Conquer a Classic this year and revisiting Lonesome Dove with you all has been pure delight. I've read dozens of books recommended here. I've visited the Book Shelf twice, ordered online and even copied Annie and Jordan's Southern Literary Roadtrip. You make my Thursdays worth getting out of bed! (Also Shop Mom is my favorite guest).
I can’t wait to tell Susie, Paula. Thank you so much! If you haven’t left a review, all you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for From the Front Porch, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Your reviews help us spread the word about not only our podcast, but about our small brick-and-mortar business, too.
Now, back to the show. Sometimes, you just want a good book list. We know this because customers come in store (or email Erin) all the time, asking for recommendations based on a specific genre or criteria. A bookseller’s favorite task — at least in my experience — is to go around the shop and put together a stack of books for a customer who’s on the hunt. Even if they don’t buy every book we pick, the fun is in the discovery. So, that’s what we’re trying to mimic on these new episodes of From the Front Porch. Every so often, I’ll come put together a book stack around a certain theme
[00:02:41] So in previous episodes we did, I think, episode 463 was some romcom reading, 473 was audiobook recommendations and we broke format just a little bit for episode 481, where I talked to my dad about his recommended reads. So now we're back. This month in honor of October and so-called spooky season (and also for the non-spooky among us), I've made two lists of my favorite spooky books and campus novels for your reading pleasure. Just like I would not overwhelm customers with a towering stack of titles, I don't want to overwhelm you either. I want to give you five books from each category I think you'd love, whether you're new to these genres or are trying to read outside of your typical box.
[00:03:25] First, we're going to start with campus novels. So I'm going to tell you in brief about these five books that I consider if not the best campus novels-- like You won't hear me talk about secret history here, even though that to me is like the ideal campus novel. I'm trying to pick off the beaten path titles or backlist titles. I really like books that definitely fall in the category, but might be a little different from what you're expecting. So we'll start with campus novels, then we'll go into spooky reads. Five books each, each topic. Here we go. Campus novels.
[00:04:06] The first book I want to recommend, it's not a novel at all. Breaking my own rules. It's called We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper. This book released in 2020, which is why every chance I get, I sing this book's praises because I feel like in 2020, 2021 and 2022 feel a little bit like they were all one year and kind of the lost years. They're a little confusing in terms of time. I can never figure out what was going on when, but what I do remember is reading this pretty significantly lengthy book in fall of 2020. I think I read it as an ARC. I remember absolutely loving it. This is narrative nonfiction, journalistic nonfiction, but it's also kind of a suspense story that is set on the campus of Harvard University. Becky Cooper is an undergraduate or was an undergrad student there. And so I just want to read this one line that kind of will let you know what the book entails. "You have to remember, he reminded me, that Harvard is older than the U.S. government. You have to remember, because Harvard doesn't let you forget.".
[00:05:28] So in 1969, a student who is 23 years old working in grad school at Harvard, she is in the anthropology department and her name is Jane. She is found bludgeoned to death in her apartment in Cambridge. 40 years later, Becky is an undergrad student at Harvard. And much like any town or university that has a sinister story-- I know I've talked about here before the murder of Mike Williams in Tallahassee, looms large in my memory. Those stories loom large in our memories. And so the death of Jane Britton is still whispered about on Harvard's campus. When Becky Cooper, the author of We Keep the Dead Close, is a student. And basically the story she was told and the story kind of whispered through the halls is that there once was a Harvard student named Jane who had an affair with her professor, and the professor had murdered her in the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology because she had threatened to leak the affair.
[00:06:31] That rumor is proofed false, but Becky as a student is trying to figure out, well, what really happened? What really happened to Jane? What kind of culture was being cultivated on this campus? And part of the reason the book, I think, is so lengthy is because it's so well researched. Becky Cooper spends 10 years kind of delving into this story. And, of course, the book takes a look at gender inequality in academia, the culture of the archeology department, which might be more masculine coded, maybe even toxic masculine coded than you might think. The misogyny that took place there. It is a true crime book, and it is also a look at our elite institutions and who protects them and why. I loved this book. I mean, I absolutely loved it. I thought it was so well-researched, so thought provoking and thoughtful.
[00:07:31] It went beyond true crime to me and instead was really a story about a campus and an institution and what happens on these lauded campuses that we hold up so highly in our minds and in our collective culture, and then what secrets get swept under the rug. I loved this book. I suspect a lot of my fellow readers would enjoy it as well. If you like an Annie, an Olivia, Erin Venn diagram, I actually think this would qualify. It's fantastic. Is it a novel? No. Is it a campus story? You bet it is. And is it one that I think you should read this fall? Absolutely. That is we keep the dead close by, Becky Cooper.
[00:08:14] Well, book number two, if you came in to The Bookshelf and you were talking to me and you said, "I really want a campus novel" I would bring you Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. This book originally released in 1987. So this will also appeal to backlist readers, to folks trying to check out books from their local library instead of hot new releases. This is a beautiful book, a quiet book. If you like works like The Old Love Good Girls or books that are about platonic friendship, if you like Elizabeth Strout, Wendell Berry, this book will be for you. This received rave reviews when it originally published in 1987. It has become one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the 20th century. Basically, it follows two couples. And I think what I love about this book is it really is just about two couples. These aren't swingers. There's nothing nefarious happening here.
[00:09:13] There's nothing weird happening. It's literally just two couples who are really good friends. They meet in academia and they stay close throughout their travels to different campuses in Vermont and Wisconsin. And so that's why to me Elizabeth Strout is the most obvious comparison. I've just come off reading her latest book Tell Me Everything, which is fantastic. And the reason this is a campus novel is because in the two couples, multiple of them work on college campuses and that's kind of how they become friends in the first place, is they work in academia. And so a lot of books that are campus novels, it feels like are about the students and it's about student life. This is a book where it's about admin and professors and their lives beyond the school walls. I talk a lot about how much I love books about platonic friendship-- and all teasing aside because I did just finish reading a couple of books that were about open marriages and that concept.
[00:10:14] This is really two couples who genuinely are true platonic friends and anybody in a couple who has found another couple to be friends with knows what a miracle that is. I just think that adult friendship is hard. I think couple friendships are even harder because now you all four got to like each other and that is tricky business. And I remember reading this book in either 2011 or 2012. It's when I first encountered this book. I remember reading it and what I was struck by was this is just a book about people. Nothing climactic happens, nothing bombastic happens. There's not an affair. There's nothing sinister going on. I love a sinister book, but that's not what this is. This is just about four people living their quiet lives, working on college campuses in these pretty idyllic, really well described universities and university campuses, which is part of the reason I consider this a campus novel. It's because for somebody like me, I think I'm drawn to campus novels because I attended a college really without a beautiful campus.
[00:11:27] I loved so much about my three years on that campus, but it is not what you picture when you picture a college campus. What I think of when I think of a college campus is beautiful brick buildings and fall leaves. And so this book is set between Vermont and Wisconsin. And so you're going to get all of that. If you have read Elizabeth Strout and you have not read this, run, don't walk to your local bookstore or to your local library. This is a beautiful book about friendship and marriage that I think is very comparable to an Elizabeth Strout or Wendell Berry type work. Crossing to Safety is one of my 10 favorite books of all time. When people ask me about my favorite books of all time is always near the top of the list. I had a friend stop me the other day and I asked her what book she had just finished reading and she said, "I just finished Crossing to Safety." And I am not a touchy feely person, I literally grabbed her by her shoulders, which I don't think I've ever done with this friend before. And I was like, oh my gosh, that book is so good.
[00:12:34] And it's kind of like-- what is the word I'm looking for? It's kind of a is it [inaudible]. Is that the reference from the Bible in West Wing? It's kind of like this marker when somebody says that's a book that they love, I immediately feel keen to them. The former owner of The Bookshelf mentioned Crossing to Safety is one of her favorite books. And I immediately thought we could be friends. And we were. That's how we started working together and working alongside each other. So if you like quiet books about platonic friendship, about people just trying their best where nothing too out of the ordinary happens-- which perhaps is underselling it a bit, but if those are books that you are drawn to, I think you will like Crossing to Safety. So many campus novels are about nefarious things, including the next one I am about to talk about. So when there's a book that's just good and quiet where people are trying their best to live good creative lives, I think that's worth pointing out. So Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner.
[00:13:41] Then I'd put on your book stack a perhaps more sinister campus novel. The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton. I first encountered Tara Isabella Burton with her book Social Creature, which Olivia and I both read and absolutely devoured. It is so creepy. And she has written a wide range of genres of books, but they're all dealing with the same things. So she has written nonfiction called Strange Rights, which is about new religions for a Godless World, I think is the subtitle. And then Self-Made, which the subtitle of that one is Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. She's currently working on a history of magic and modernity. She's got her doctorate in theology from Oxford. And so I chose The World Cannot Give Which released in 2022 as our book club selection. So there was a period in time in which our book club was choosing themed books depending on the month. And I believe August or September was a campus novel and I picked the World Cannot Give.
[00:14:52] And I've told this story on this podcast before. My entire book club hated this book. I loved this book. I absolutely loved this book. And surely you know what it's like to go into your book club and be so excited because you loved the book and then you quickly realize, whoops, nobody else likes it but you. And that's okay. That is totally fine. What I loved is by the end of our conversation, even though my friends did not come around to loving the book, it lent itself to really good conversation. Which is why I always say good book club books are not just books where everybody sits around and says, yeah, that was great! Look, that's not a good book club book. A good book club book should strike up conversation. And that's exactly what this book does. So this book is set in Maine-- of course it is-- at Saint Dunstan's Academy. And we have two main characters.
[00:15:42] We have shy and sensitive, Laura. And then we have fanatical Virginia who has bought into her Christian faith and kind of shoves it down people's throats. And Laura, the shy, sensitive newcomer, is obsessed with her favorite novel, fictional book called All Before Them. And it's like the sole piece of writing from a St Dunstan's alum. So she is convinced that if she can go to Saint Dunstan's Academy, it would be really important to her because this is her favorite book of all time. And the author of it was an alum who died at 19. And so the school does remind me of the Secret History. Super insular. These students live on campus. It's a boarding school. And she tries to join the school's chapel choir, which is run by charismatic overachiever Virginia. So Virginia is like the Regina George character, and Laura is like the Cady Heron. And immediately the same kind of creepy friendship that Tara Isabella Burton writes about in Social Creature, that vibe is happening here. But at the same time, there's a new school chaplain who comes on board and kind of upends Virginia's ideas about Christianity and how seriously she takes her faith. Okay, I think Hunter would agree with me on this. I think Hunter read this book and really liked it. Does anybody remember the movie Saved? Do y'all remember that movie with Mandy Moore?
[00:17:33] Listen, if you like Saved, you will like the World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton. There is, as I said, a little bit of a sinister thing happening here. There's no magical realism. There's nothing like that. But this is, in my mind, a literary book with elements of suspense. So I wouldn't shelve it as a thriller, but there are suspenseful elements as Virginia and Laura try to maintain a very tenuous friendship and relationship. And then Virginia kind of struggles with her faith, holding people to this really impossible standard. This little clump of students who just have become super insular from the rest of the school. The school is also really memorable- St Dunstan's Academy. One of my favorite campus novels that I did not include on this list is Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. And that's what I love about a traditional campus novel, is you feel like you are on that campus. You feel like the campus is a character in the book. And that is certainly true of Saint Dunstan's Academy. So The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton literary with like some creepiness going on. I really loved this book.
[00:19:05] Then we're going to go I think not as far back as Crossing to Safety, but we're going to go pretty far back into the backlist for the Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. If you are a regular listener of From the Front Porch, you know that I like sports adjacent books. This is one of those books and so I did want to mention it here. To me, it is a campus novel that also is a whole lot about baseball. So it's set on the campus of Westish College, which is a small school on the shores of Lake Michigan. Chefs kiss. And a student and baseball star named Henry, he seems like he's going to be the next big thing for the MLB. But a routine throw goes off course. Not only does it go off course, but it sends the lives of five different people into tumult. So we get Henry, who has to fight against self-doubt because this thing that he was so good at now looks like it might be the end of him and maybe he's having to rethink his career. So I was saying that lot of times we don't get a lot about admin at these schools.
[00:20:20] The college president Guert is a long time bachelor, but he is starting to fall in love. Owen is Henry's gay roommate and teammates, and he's caught up in this dangerous affair. Mike is the team captain and Henry's best friends, and he kind of realizes he's played second fiddle to Henry for maybe too long. And then Gert daughter, Pella, returns to Westish after escaping her own complicated, broken marriage, ready to start over. So those are the five characters. And the book takes place during the baseball season. So the season counts down to like this climactic final game. I think this book is brilliant. I think it is brilliant. It was released a long time ago. It feels like now. And so I thought it would be the perfect time to reintroduce it to perhaps some new readers. When it released, it was pretty popular. I think it released to universally positive reviews. But because of its association with baseball-- I mean, the title of the book is called The Art of Fielding-- I think we forget that it's just a really good campus book. The college on Lake Michigan is really beautiful and plays an important role in the book like we were talking about with the previous work. I think if you like Throwback Special or Evvie Drake Starts Over, I think you would really like The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach.
[00:21:49] Last but not least, I would hand you The Explanation for Everything by Lauren Grodstein. You might recognize Lauren's name because last year her book, We Must Not Think of Ourselves, was a Jenna Bush Hager pick, which I did not read, which probably I should have. But I kept wondering when I saw that book at The Bookshelf, I think I just automatically-- and this is my own bias showing in not in a good way. I think I saw the cover and thought that's historical fiction, I probably wouldn't be interested. But then I kept wondering, why is that woman's name so familiar? Why is that author's name so familiar? And it is because in my early, early days at The Bookshelf when I started working towards store ownership, the book the Explanation for Everything was released. It had this very striking cover. The edition that is being printed now does not have the cover that I have. The cover that I have got this neutral kind of snake pattern. And the reason this book appeals to me is-- well, you'll see. For all the reasons so many books appeal to me.
[00:22:59] So the main character is Andy. He is a college professor and he is kind of picking up the pieces of his life after the loss of his wife. So his life is kind of overshadowed by grief. But he also is having to pick up the pieces because he's got two young daughters to care for and he's got students who he's leading and teaching. He is an evolutionary biology teacher. He teaches a class on campus that I think it's called something almost eyeroll inducing because it feels so over the top. But it's called something like there is no God or something. And students flock to it. They love this class. He obviously believes in Darwinian evolution. And so that is who Andy is. And then during this year where Andy is not feeling maybe completely like himself; he's grieving, he's lonely, there's this transfer student named Melissa who asks for him to help with her independent study. To kind of oversee her independent study. And her topic is Intelligent design. What unfolds then is this interesting relationship that I will go ahead and tell you this is a book that I don't know what it would have been like if it had been written in 2024.
[00:24:20] But there is a romantic plotline that I'm not a fan of, but I do think it is accurate to the characters that Lauren Gradstein has created. So I do just want to go ahead and let you know that that does happen in this book. This is not a platonic friendship book. This becomes a kind of careful but not entirely healthy romance. I don't think Lauren Gradstein is putting this couple on a pedestal. It's a grieving man and then this very charismatic, devoutly religious student. And they get in these frequent debates and Andy finds himself perhaps for the first time on some uncertain ground where he can't quite figure out what he believes, why he believes it. He finds it difficult to articulate his reasons for believing in things or not believing in the things around Melissa. And so all of the carefully constructed things that Andy has created for himself start to fall apart.
[00:25:24] This book is not perfect, but I recall loving the writing and again the college campus atmosphere. And books like Francis and Bernard, The Essex Serpent books, where you have two people who are trying together to figure out what they believe and why they believe it. Listen, again, these characters are not perfect. But Melissa being this devout, knows exactly what she believes, thinks she can defend it to the nth degree. If that doesn't speak college student to you, I don't know what does. I feel like we all went through those phases where in college we just knew exactly what we believed and we were ready to fight to the death over it. And so her youth and exuberance pitted against this college professor who I think is a little bit more willing to say, well, I don't know. I don't know about that. I think his adulthood versus her coming of age is really interesting and compelling. I do not think this book is quite as well written as Francis and Bernard, but I think if you like characters that are asking big questions-- and I even think I feel like I've mentioned this book a lot lately, but Fire Sermon or a few episodes ago I mentioned the book Crush by Ada Calhoun.
[00:26:48] If you like books that are dealing with those heavier issues while also dealing with a romantic plotline. I think you'll like this one. It's not a romcom. This is not a romance novel. This is very much a traditional fiction or maybe sort of literary fiction. But I really liked it and nobody talks about it. And I don't know if nobody talks about it because of that romantic relationship or if nobody talks about it because it's dumb, I don't know. But I really liked it. And I definitely think it's worth talking about in the campus novel genre. So partly because I know we've talked about the setting of campuses, but there's also the spirit of the college campus, which is you're coming of age, you're figuring out who you are. Part of you is 100 percent certain what you believe and why you believe it, and part of you is asking big questions for the very first time. And so I think this book encapsulates the spirit of the college campus really well, where you've got this professor who's maybe at the end of his rope a little bit and finds himself a little bit lost. And then this sure of herself college student who she's kind of an enigma to him. I think this is a good book. I don't hear about it talked very much, so I wanted to mention it. It is The Explanation for Everything by Lauren Gradstein released in 2013 originally.
[00:28:16] Look, this list could have gone on and on, but the whole point, as I said at the top of the episode, is not to bombard you or confuse you or overwhelm you. That being said, my two honorable mentions are The Incendiaries by R. O. Kwon And then if you prefer a romcom set on the campus, my friend Kimberly recommended Play for Me by Libby Hubscher last year and I loved it. So honorable mentions to the Incendiaries by R. O. Kwon and Play for Me by Libby Hubscher. We're going to talk about bundles at the end of the episode, but the five books I mentioned for campus books: We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper, Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, and The Explanation for Everything by Lauren Gradstein. You can find all of those books listed in the show notes. You can find them links to the website. And then we are doing bundles. If you just want a campus novel bundle, all of those books will be included in the bundle.
[00:29:20] Now on to Spooky reads. It is spooky season. And if Keila were on this podcast, I think we'd be talking mostly about horror novels. If Olivia were on this episode, I think we'd be talking about probably a wide range of cozy mysteries, suspense, thrillers, and then maybe even a little bit of sci-fi. My favorite genre of spooky books is it could happen to me. It could happen to you. Realistic, creepy suspense thrillers where there's a dead body or two. There are fraught relationships and there are things that go bump in the night. That's what we're talking about when we're talking about my favorite spooky reads. So if you came into The Bookshelf and you wanted a spooky read and I happened to be your bookseller that day, I would pull for you immediately Someone in the Attic. This is by Andrea Marra. It just released earlier this year. It released in August and the moment I finished it, I thought, that's an October book. Meaning that is a spooky read.
[00:30:29] I think A.J. Finn blurbed this book and said something like Someone in the Attic is to bathtubs as Psycho was to showers. And I love that kind of descriptor. The book opens with a young woman named Anya. Anya is relaxing in the tub with a glass of wine. She hears a noise. She wonders if it's her partner coming in. She's a little frustrated because she's having some alone time. And then, through the open bathroom door, she sees the attic hatch swing down and a masked figure drops to the floor. Thirty seconds later, she's dead. That happens in the opening pages. And I was reading this in the bathtub, which I did on purpose because I knew what this book was about. And my bathtub door opens right out and you can see the attic. And I was creeped out in the best possible way. A couple of chapters later, we are introduced to Julia. Julia is Anya's old school friend. Julia has seen an online video of a masked person coming out of the attic, and the footage looks very familiar. And her daughter is who spots it first. Her daughter points out, yes, mom, that looks familiar because that's our house.
[00:31:48] And thus starts to unspool this mystery because Anya's death is not being investigated as a murder. People believe she drowned in her bathtub until we start to see this TikTok footage, this Internet footage of masked figures coming down out of the attic. And people are trying to figure out, is this a harmless prank? Is this AI. Julia and her kids are like, is this really our house? Julia is way more unsure than her kids are. Her kids are immediately like, yeah, this is our house. And so Julia has moved back to the area. There are some secrets as to why maybe she has moved back to the area, why she might be targeted for something like this, why might Anya. This is a book about female friendships and it is creepy. I really liked it. I absolutely flew through it. I'm trying to think what I would compare it to, but it is a traditional thriller suspense novel. There's action happening every page, short chapters, compulsively readable. That is Someone in the Attic by Andrea Marra.
[00:33:05] Next in the book stack would be the Quiet Tenant. This is by I'm going to try to pronounce this in what I assume would be the French, which is Clemence Michallon. But she is a French author who chose to write this book in English, which I always thought was a flex because she's French. This book could have been translated, but instead she translated herself. She wrote it in English just because she could. Aidan is hard working. He's beloved in the community. Family Man. Pitches in on volunteer projects, etc. He lives in this small upstate New York town. Everybody loves him. He works hard. He pitches in with the community like an upstanding citizen kind of guy. But Aidan is a kidnaper and a serial killer, and he currently has on his property a ninth woman. That's right. He's murdered eight women, and he has a ninth in his backyard in a shed. Rachel is the woman who's imprisoned in the backyard. She is obviously scared for her life. And Aidan and his 13-year-old daughter, Cecilia, have to move. They have to sell their house.
[00:34:19] And Aidan has to choose is he going to go ahead and kill Rachel or bring her to. And do you have to suspend disbelief? Maybe a little. So Aidan takes Rachel with Cecilia, his daughter, and introduces Cecilia to her as a family friend. Rachel has been in captivity with Aidan for five years. So we're talking a little bit of Stockholm syndrome, some brainwashing, very reminiscent of the book Room, which I read years ago and loved. And Cecilia, the precocious 13-year-old daughter, starts to feel like something might be up. And so what I really like about this book and I think it got rave reviews because of this when it released, is it kind of turns the serial killer storyline on its head and instead centers the voices of Rachel, Cecilia and then Emily. Emily is a local, I believe, waitress or maybe she owns a restaurant. And because she's in the community, she's very familiar with Aidan. Aidan frequently helps out, pitches in and they start to develop a romantic relationship. And so those three women, Rachel, Cecilia and Emily, slowly start to find out who Aiden is. Rachel, of course, already is very aware, but is struggling to articulate it because she's been in captivity for so long.
[00:35:47] So the book centers the voices of the women. And instead Aiden is this quiet presence in the book. And we do get glimpses of him and pictures of him, but the book is not his. The book is Rachel's. The book is Cecelia's. The book is Emily's. I loved this book. It is a psychological thriller with three strong female characters at its center. I think that's what I also liked about it. Yes, you have to suspend a little bit of disbelief, but the three women are entirely believable and interesting and complicated. And so I think this is a thriller. It's also a study of survival and obviously power dynamics and female friendship and women who come forward and try to tell the truth. It was so good. I really liked it and I feel like it was well-received when it released but was about a blip. I feel like there are so many suspense thrillers that are published every year. It's almost like romance novels. There are so many published every year that you can feel like you've got to move on, like you have to read the next big thing because it's too late. This book came out a year ago and it already feels like too many others have been published for you to catch up. Now's your chance to catch up. I think The Quiet Tenant by Clemence Michallon would be worth reading. That would be on my on my spooky read stack.
[00:37:17] Next, would be a book that I think most people would look at me and say why? Because of the cover. I do not like the cover of this book. I'm not alone in that. I think it's okay for me to say. That book is What Happened to Nina. This is by Dervla McTiernan. This released earlier this year. I did not pick it up because the cover is odd. It is a photograph of a woman standing in a desert. And I do not know why; I loved this book. I thought the nature writing was really smart. Nina, obviously, is our main character. Nina and Simon are the picture perfect couple. Young, fun, deeply in love. Then they leave for a getaway weekend at his family's cabin in Vermont, and only Simon comes home. And Nina's parents are desperate to figure out what happened to Nina. That's where we get the title, obviously. What happened to Nina? Why she didn't come home? They want to question Simon. They feel like he's the last one to see her alive and so surely he has information that he can share.
[00:38:25] And instead, Simon comes from a very well-off family in the community. They immediately hire expensive lawyers, a PR firm that prevents Nina's family from getting information. And they kind of adopt this vow of silence where they're not going to comment to the police, so they're going to protect their son no matter what. And so things start to become he said-she said, only there's no she. Nina is not around to defend herself to explain herself. They armchair investigators kind of come out in this town, conspiracy theories trying to figure out who Nina is, why she disappeared and if Simon knows anything about it. This is a book about family dynamics. You compared Nina's family to Simon's family. It's also a book that deals, I think, really well with class dynamics because of the wealth disparity between the two families.
[00:39:24] I really liked this book because I've read some really good thrillers this year, but I think one of the current things we're seeing in publishing is a lot of thrillers or suspense novels that deal with podcasting. And this book so quickly could have been like somebody wrote a podcast about Nina, and instead, it's not that at all. It's really about one family trying to fight for their daughter and then another family pushing equally as hard to fight for their son. And you, the reader, spend a lot of time wondering who is right? What happened to Nina? Who is to blame for her death? What happened to her? It's a little bit of a whodunit, but it's mostly family dynamics. I really liked this book. I flew through it in one weekend. Ignore the cover and snag this one because I think you will really enjoy it. It's What Happened to Nina by Dervla McTiernan.
[00:40:16] Also released earlier this year, and I think also lost a little bit in just the hustle and bustle of the publishing industry, is a book called Knife River by Justine Champine. I have not known how to pronounce it. This book was released earlier this year. I immediately read it and thought, oh my gosh, Olivia would love this book. It is very reminiscent of Long Bright River. We are introduced to sisters Jess and Liz. Jess is 13. When her mother goes for a walk and never comes back. Her older sister Liz tries to take good care of Jess and raise Jess as best she can. And then when Jess turns 18 she leaves town, Knife River, never to return because she is just ready to get out. Ready to leave that trauma behind. Liz, however, in perhaps true stereotypical eldest sister fashion stays. And she stays in the childhood home until finally one day, years later, when they are both well into adulthood, Liz calls Jess and says, "I think they found Mum's body." And so Jess has to come home to Knife River to her sister and finds that her sister has not really taken care of the house. It's kind of a hoarder situation. The house is still as rundown as it ever was. Liz is obsessed with unsolved missing persons cases because of this thing that happened to her when she was a teen. Jess obviously has trauma she's recovering from, but so does Liz.
[00:41:55] And this is definitely a sibling story. It reminds me of that saying that no two siblings have the same parents. And you can see how the disappearance of her mother affected Jess is different from how it affected Liz. And Liz agrees to stay in Knife River until they can figure out is there an answer to what happened to their mom. Who might have killed their mom? Or did she just go missing? The police there in this smallish town are really saying she got lost on a walk. She just never came home. And the girls refused to believe it. Knife River is the most literary of the books that are on my spooky reads list. So if you like literary suspense novels like Long Bright River, like Peter Heller-- or Peter Nichols, he had a book earlier this year called Granite Harbor. If you like books like that, which I do, I think you will love Knife River by Justine Champine. I do not know why this one hasn't gotten more buzz because I thought it was excellent and I think it would be well worth your time this fall.
[00:43:09] Last but not least, I think the creepiest book on my list is Night Watching by Tracy Sierra. This came out last year. I believe I read it over the holiday season. What a fun time to read a creepy thriller book. I immediately told Olivia you have to read this. It's a one night read. You'll read it in one night. And she did. And even she was like, "Annie, this was terrifying." Exactly. One night, a mom-- I believe she goes unnamed throughout the book-- is tucking her son back into bed in the middle of the night. He's gotten up. He's woken her up. And her eyes kind of pop open. She's been trying to drift off to sleep because she hears a noise. They live in an old home. She assumes it's nothing, but then she starts to hear heavy, slow footsteps coming up the stairs. She sees in the shadows a man in the hallway. She grabs her children and she goes into hiding. Most of the novel-- not all of it, but most of it-- is this mom trying to hide and protect her kids during this home invasion in the middle of the night? It is creepy.
[00:44:23] It is reminiscent of Fierce Kingdom. If you read that book a few years ago, that book is brutal. If you read that book, I think you would like this one. It honestly reminded me-- I'm trying to remember the name of the book. It's a backlist title from my teenage years. Babysitting is a Dangerous Job. We read it in the Young Adult Book Club we did a few years ago. And that book as a kid was so creepy. I can't remember what I thought of it as an adult, but as a kid I loved it because it was about this babysitter who comes and she and the kids wind up having to hide in the attic because they're victims of a home invasion. And that is definitely the feeling that you get when reading this book. The same feelings I got as a kid reading Babysitting Is a Dangerous Job are the feelings I got while reading Night Watching by Tracy Sierra. What I loved about this is, like I said, most of it, not all, is set over the course of this one night which it feels like a bottle episode of TV.
[00:45:31] And that's part of the reason you fly through it so quickly, it's because you're desperate to find out what's going to happen to this mom and her kids. And it is deeply unsettling. I mean, deeply unsettling. Well, I read this at my parents’ house. Jordan was in bed next to me. And my parents live out a little bit, and this house in this book is set out in the woods a bit. And so it was really creepy. And I was glad I was in a house full of people. So if you live alone, I would either skip this one or read it during the day and follow it up, chase it with a palate cleanser. Chase it with an episode of Friends. But I loved it. I think it is worth the creep factor. I think it is terrifying in the best possible way and I loved it. That is Night Watching by Tracy Sierra.
[00:46:32] So if you're looking for spooky horror reads this season, we will have in caps in store for you. You can browse our website. Erin does a great job of putting books on line that might appeal to you beyond maybe these traditional suspense thriller books. But these are my favorite spooky books that I would read in this season, and they are mostly traditional thrillers for people who are fans of Gillian Flynn, etc.. So Someone in The Attic by Andrea Marra, The Quiet Tenant by Clemence Michallon, What Happened to Nina by Dervla McTiernan, Knife River by Justine Champine, and Night Watching by Tracy Sierra. All Ladies. I didn't realize that until just now. All lady writers. That's fantastic. So all of these books are listed on the website, including lots of other fun spooky reads for this season. We have a lot of spooky romcoms that have just come in. Lots of witchy books for this season. So you can go to Bookshelfthomasville.com, browse to your heart's content. Or you can put 498 into the search bar. This is episode 498. We've created two bundles for you to make your seasonal reading super easy. We have the campus novel bundle and then the Spooky Reads Bundle, which include each of the five books I talked about for each genre. Those are found on the website as well.
[00:48:03] This week, I'm reading Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt.
[00:48:05] Annie Jones: From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website:
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:
Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of From the Front Porch and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
Our Executive Producers of today’s episode are…
Cammy Tidwell, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell, Jennifer Bannerton, Gene Queens
Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins, Susan Hulings
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