with Cassie E. Brown August 20, 2025 S.T. Gibson is the #1 Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author of A DOWRY OF BLOOD and other gothic romances and dark fantasies. Her work explores the intersection of the sacred, the sexy, and the mystical. Saint has been nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award and British Fantasy Award, and longlisted for a British Science Fiction Award. Cassie Brown: It’s such an honor that S.T. Gibson has agreed to sit down with Bazoo Books. Your work is so dark, sexy, and fascinating… I devoured A DOWRY OF BLOOD and haven’t looked back! I just finished ASCENSION (which is Book II of The Summoner’s Circle Series), and am absolutely breathless. Thank you for your time! S.T. Gibson: Thank you so much for having me! It’s a pleasure. Cassie Brown: You’ve written in detail about ancient cities across Europe in A DOWRY OF BLOOD. In AN EDUCATION IN MALICE, the college of St. Perpetua’s itself is so lushly described as to be another character. And the Boston of EVOCATION and ASCENSION feels both modern and crowded with secrets. Is there a place you go that consistently fills your cup of writing inspiration? Where do you do your best writing? S.T. Gibson: Setting is one of strongest inspirations when it comes to writing; many of my books are inspired by places I’ve visited or lived! It’s impossible for me to grasp the shape of a story until I know when or where it’s set. Every new location has its own heartbeat and magic to me, its own stories and secrets, and travelling and learning about history is one of my favorite things, so I’m always glad when I can incorporate those experiences into stories. It’s why EVOCATION is so tied to the personality and seasonality of Boston, a beloved city where I lived after graduate school, and SAVAGE BLOOMS is inspired by the Southwestern Highlands of Scotland, specifically Arisaig Manor in county Argyll. The story was inspired by a friend and I hiking out around there looking for our own legendary cave, and it's also the region my Scottish ancestors are from. So, that setting is especially dear to me. Cassie Brown: You have given us vampires and sorcerers. But your next novel, SAVAGE BLOOMS, is set in the Highlands, and it seems we will be encountering faeries! Tell us who will we have the pleasure of encountering in SAVAGE BLOOMS! S.T. Gibson: As the first book in the trilogy, SAVAGE BLOOMS is most concerned with four young people tied together by a web of ancestral sins, faery enchantment, and burning desire that they themselves only partially understand. We follow Adam, an American golden boy with commitment issues who is still grieving the loss of his grandfather, who raised Adam on stories of a mysterious manor home in Scotland. Adam ventures out to the home - Craigmar - to find closure, and his best friend Nicola, an amateur folklorist and children’s book author, follows him out there. The pair spent all of college pining after each other and are both hoping to finally hook up on the trip, but things get complicated when they’re stranded at Craigmar by heavy rain. There they meet Eileen, the capricious and mysteriously eccentric “lord” of the manor, and her devoted groundskeeper Finley, who holds more power in his relationship with Eileen than anyone suspects. The four become embroiled in each other’s mind games - and each other’s beds - quickly, and it’s all gothic melodrama from there. There are faery creatures in and around (and under) Craigmar, inspired more heavily by pre-Roman folk practices and medieval beliefs than by naturalist Romanticism or the fae lovers of modern romantics. Which isn’t to say that they aren’t sexy or deeply tied to the land, but whatever you’re imagining, they’re probably Worse. And they take center stage as the series goes on. Cassie Brown: Books, education, and writers feature prominently within your works. You name many poets, alchemists, scholars, and magicians. Whose works do you find have influenced you most who are not fiction writers? S.T. Gibson: I’m passionate about learning and always have been. I loved college and graduate school, and if I perhaps didn’t have the diligence and focus for longer-term research projects, it was usually because I wanted to get my hands dirty doing experiential learning, or jump to exploring some other topic. Being an author is the greatest fun for me because I’m always basically doing some kind of weird extended independent research project for the sake of telling a tale. Thinkers who have heavily influenced my work so far are psychologist Carl Jung, occultists Alan Moore, Rachel Pollack, and Caroline Lovewell, folklorists Francis Young, Robert Kirk, and Richard Hutton, philosophers Byung-Chul Han and Simon Critchley, theologians Richard Rohr, Ellen F. Davis, and Saint Ignatius of Loyala, and diarist Anais Nin, just to name a few. And I’m sure I’m forgetting so many more! Cassie Brown: In ASCENSION, we see Rhys falling deeply into a tragedy of his own making. I am consistently impressed at how you write characters who often make bad choices, engage in toxic behavior, or lean into flaws, while still pulling the reader through with them on their journeys. As a writer, how do you balance flaws and challenges to make characters who are not tidy and neat yet are empathetic and compelling to read? Is that sort of writing skill natural to you, or did you cultivate it? S.T. Gibson: So many readers always tell me how much they love my messy, toxic characters (they mean this as a compliment and I take it as one) but I see the mess as part of writing characters with depth, characters with big feelings and big ambitions and big desires who swing big for what they want and sometimes miss catastrophically. I love melodrama, in opera or musicals or Greek tragedy or camp movies, so characters doing things that make you gasp is part of the pleasure of writing to me. And I think it makes them human. We all have light and dark within us; none of us are beyond participating in evil and none of us are too far gone to ever decide to do the right thing. I just love to explore the grey area friction point where those two forces meet and demand more of us. Cassie Brown: The Summoner’s Circle Series has always masterfully woven together three POV characters: Rhys, Moira, and David. You have focused a novel on David and Rhys, each of them dancing with their respective demons. Will we ever get to see Moira’s dark side? S.T. Gibson: Yes, of course! The next book in the series is Moira’s book, and I’ve been building to her “dark side of the moon arc” as I call it for a while. Sometimes, even the kindest and most giving and compassionate person is exactly so sweet because they’re trying to something their unruly desires or darker emotions like anger or ambition. And sometimes, the only way for a character as love and light as Moira to integrate into a powerful, full force of nature is to embrace her darkness. Besides, she didn’t end up married to cutthroat, Machiavellian Rhys for no reason. Sure, opposites attract, but sometimes like subconsciously attracts like! Cassie Brown: Thank you again. What a true pleasure! Bazoo Books looks forward to the upcoming release of SAVAGE BLOOMS on October 7th! S.T. Gibson: This was a blast! Thanks so much for having me, and for your thoughtful questions! Find S.T. Gibson’s work at Bazoo Books or on Bazoo’s own Bookshop.org site https://bookshop.org/shop/bazoobooks. You don’t have to go far to find all the dark, sexy, and magical things we’ve talked about here. Just support your local independent bookstore! Connect with S.T. Gibson at @stgibsonauthor or follow her Substack (https://saint.substack.com).

Maybe it’s just me but, have you noticed how certain words seem to get worn out until they barely mean anything anymore? This semantic satiation that happens with words like slammed, scandal, outrage, freedom, patriotism, woke, crisis, radical, tradition, family values, extremist, radical or even truth itself is a characteristic of propaganda. These words carry questions that go unanswered. That’s not an accident. When words get vague, they’re easier to weaponize. They can be filled with whatever meaning the speaker needs, and suddenly language stops being a tool for clarity and becomes a tool for control. This is what I mean when I say “degradation of language.” It’s not that people today are dumber or that anything is ruining language. Language has always evolved. But lately, it’s evolving in a way that strips away nuance and rewards repetition, bluntness, repetition, emotion, and repetition. It’s evolving with intent and potency. The intent more often than not, turns out to be to conceal or obfuscate the truth. The potency of any message is now higher than ever thanks to social media. It’s this generation’s Magnavox Speaker. Think about the way social media works: character limits, hashtags, memes. The simpler and punchier the phrase, the more it spreads. That’s great for a joke, but terrible for critical thinking. Critical thinking requires time and contemplation and debate. It’s an excellent environment to spread emotionally loaded language. By the time the debate is had the narrative has moved on and there’s nothing left to debate. Propagandists know this and they count on it. Using loaded language that lights up our emotions. Loaded language is the use of terms or phrases that are designed to bypass your brain and go straight to your gut, instead of more neutral terms. You don’t stop to ask, “Wait, what do you actually mean by that?” because the emotional reaction is already doing the work. Words like bureaucrat instead of elected official. Or elitist instead of expert. Illegal immigrant instead of asylum seeker. Radical instead of opponent. One rebellion’s freedom fighter is another empire’s terrorist. Right, Star Wars fans? We’ve seen this play out before. Euphemisms (less offensive synonyms for unpleasant terms) make horrors palatable. Repetition makes lies familiar. So they turn words into euphemisms and repeat them. And nostalgia is the sweetest bait of all. Whisper “things used to be better” and half the work is already done. Governments and media love to use doublespeak. They swap out harsh truths for soft language: “collateral damage” instead of “civilian deaths.” “Enhanced interrogation” instead of “torture.” “Efficiency improvements” instead of “budget cuts.” “Metadata analysis” instead of “mass spying.” “Protecting national interests” instead of “suppressing dissent.” “Resource Optimisation” instead of “exploitation.” It sounds sterile, almost clinical, but that’s the point. If the words are clean, you don’t feel the blood on them. The intention is to obscure the truth and manipulate. Perhaps the most dangerous misuse of language is dehumanization. The moment you start hearing humans described as “animals,” “aliens,” “vermin,””Illegals” or anything less than human, you should hear sirens in your head. When you hear terms like “infestation” or “savage” or if words gain negative connotation when targeted at a group of people, your sirens should scream. Again, we’ve seen this play out before. Once the words sink in, the unthinkable starts to feel normal. We’ve seen before that the language of dehumanization is often followed by violence. Don’t believe me? “Do your own research” and READ about dehumanization. In April of 1946 George Orwell published an essay titled, “Politics and the English Language.” Addressing the political volatility of the time and what he saw as the misuse of language, Orwell warns that this lack of attention to the words we use has an eroding effect on our civilization. An effect he details by writing: Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. In that he describes a self fulfilling cycle of harm that I think makes it easy to understand our current political climate. It takes a lot of energy to try to hold the flood of opinions disguised as facts to account. Most humans can’t keep up and so we put our heads down to keep from being overwhelmed by it all. But here is George Orwell, 80 years ago, with prescience, because history repeats itself, telling us how, individually, we can overcome it. ..”Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don’t know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language —and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists— is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase —some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse— into the dustbin, where it belongs.” So the good news is, you can fight it simply by noticing it. The moment you pause and ask, What does that word really mean? Why are they disguising things? You take the teeth out of the trick. When you hear slogans repeated over and over, ask yourself why? When someone leans on emotional euphemisms or words taken out of context and undefined concepts, recognize these things for what they are: an attempt to play you. Language is powerful because it shapes the way we think. Words mold our reality. Don’t let someone else define that reality for you. Don’t let someone else shape the way you think. To protect yourself all you have to do is be mindful of what you hear and repeat. If we stay sharp, demand clarity, resist vagueness, and call out the use of euphemisms, propaganda loses a lot of its power. In the end, protecting our language is protecting our freedom to think. Be careful when they come for that, though. “A word to the unwise. Torch every book. Char every page. Burn every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear.” - Ellen Hopkins, Burned

Laurie Halse Anderson’s words ring true now more than ever. In a world of 8.142 billion people, where technology should connect us more than ever before, we often find ourselves divided—by fear, by misunderstanding, and too often, by deliberate silence. History shows us again and again that when knowledge is restricted, societies stumble into the same mistakes, repeating old wounds under new disguises. We live in a time of immense privilege, with access to art, music, film, and literature at our fingertips—tools that nurture empathy and curiosity. Yet despite this access, entire stories are still being hidden from us, stripped away under the banner of “protection.” The fight over banned books is not simply about shelves and syllabi.It is about the preservation of truth, the protection of curiosity, and the refusal to let fear dictate our collective story. To allow censorship to stand unchallenged is to risk exchanging progress for ignorance. As a child, my mother often reminded me that you can’t control others; you can only control how you react. If something offends you, you have the power to simply turn away rather than engage. Of course, offense and actual physical harm are very different matters. Yet when we look at the criteria for banning books, it is rarely about preventing harm and almost always about avoiding discomfort. Books are most often challenged for their historical or racial themes, LGBTQ+ representation, political or religious content, sexual topics, or questions of age appropriateness. But if a book’s subject matter feels offensive to an individual, has it ever been considered that the solution could be as simple as choosing not to read it; rather than removing it from everyone else’s reach? In what follows, I will highlight some of my favorite banned books, exploring the reasons they have been challenged and what we lose when their voices are silenced. And if you’d like to judge for yourself, you can find these titles in our store. Whether to educate yourself, to satisfy your curiosity, or to decide where you stand in the conversation. 1984- George Orwell Published in 1949, Orwell spun a riveting tale warning the general public about the dangers of totalitarian government and censorship. Funny enough it was banned for those very reasons. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott Written in 1868, Little Women has been challenged time and time again due to its empowering feminine characters and its deterrence from normal gender roles. *Hot take: If reading about women choosing careers and passions makes you uncomfortable, perhaps it’s time for some self-reflection. Animal Farm- George Orwell An interesting take on communism from a farm animals point of view. This interesting story was banned because of its anti- communist undertones as well as violence. Thirteen Reasons Why- Jay Asher Asher’s novel has been banned for its exposure on mental health, bullying, and in the end suicide. Touching on topics that are very real, especially for the age group in which it was intended. The Giving Tree- Shel Silversteen What started as a cautionary children’s tale on how to treat others has been banned due to its themes of abuse and unhealthy relationships and self- sacrificing actions in order to please others. The Parables of the Sewer- Octavia Butler Set in a dystopian “future” where the characters are faced with climate change, poverty, and racism. In which the main protagonist is forced to survive and rally amongst the trials that have been thrust upon her. This book has been banned due to tough subject matter (racism, classism, and drugs) as well as its controversial take on climate change. Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury The title itself is the temperature in which paper burns. This dystopian novel takes place in a futuristic society in which books are banned and burned due to provoking emotion in the readers that the government can not control. Extreme censorship that takes hold by the eradication of literature as a whole. Harry Potter- J. K Rowling This story follows a young boy who is forced to live with relatives who abused and degraded him and then gets thrown into a magical world and all of the things that that entails at the age of nine. He creates family out of friends and mentors and fights the powers of evil. This book series has been banned due to magical undertones as well as being “potentially harmful to children”. Alice in Wonderland- Lewis Carrol A familiar tale of a little girl who got curious, went down a rabbit hole, and had a wild adventure. First banned due to the hookah pipe the caterpillar used; more recently flagged due to disrespectful undertones to society. A Brave New World- Aldous Huxley A futuristic novel based on genetic engineering in order to produce a “utopian” society by streamlining generalized happiness over the individual themselves. Banned due to drug use, religious overviews, and violence. Handmades Tale- Margrett Attwood Written in 1985 this story takes place in modern times during a decline in birth rates which leads for women's rights to be stripped to the bare bones minimum for the “greater good” of overall society. Banned frequently world wide due to gender oppression, religious control, and sexual content/ violence. This book has been banned over again in school districts recently and has gained a lot of popularity due to similarities to current times. Where the Wild Things Are- Maurice Sendak A story about a child who wishes not to follow the rules so he goes to the forest, hangs out with some monsters, and eventually realizes he misses his home and structure. This book has been banned due to “encouraging disrespect to authority”, encouraging rebellion, and also been said to have dark undertones and psychological deficits on children. The Color Purple- Alice Walker An African American woman writes to God about her tragic life experiences that ends in empowerment and a strong sense of self through triumph in terrible life events. This book has been banned due to explicit violence, sexual content, racism, and religious objections. The Perks of Being a Wallflower- Stephen Chbosky Follows Charlie through his high school experience as a young boy choosing his path, dealing with his mental health, and finding friends. Challenged due to explicit drug use and language, as well as sexual undertones. Has also been banned due to its lack of positivity and for "romanticising bad mental health”. The Giver- Lois Lowry A seeming utopian society begins to produce problems very much like Huxley’s A Brave New World. Banned due to social control and rebellion to authority, as well as violence and language. The Hate U Give- Angie Thomas A young African American woman navigates the current world and its conditions. Banned due to its “negative opinion on police and its influence it may have on anti- authority” as well as violence and drug and alcohol abuse. These are a few of the many books that have been banned time and time again across the globe with the intent to “protect” the future from the negative repercussions of participating in good fiction literature. The keyword being fiction, or is it? Why is so much weight being added to these titles? To these situations that protagonists find themselves in over and over and over again, just to be silenced? What is supposed to be a form of connection, a vessel to another world or, a shoulder to cry on is weaponized and sent to the banned shelf to collect dust. It is all incredibly sad to see. Luckily there are people who care enough to keep them in stock or available to order and in a week (or two) within your reach for a lucky individual to pick up and take home and love. To see the stories as they intended. Banning books has never protected us. It has only ever left us unprepared for the world we actually live in. Pick up a banned book, read it, share it, and let it do what stories do best: remind us we are not alone.

A little dark romance just in time for the spooky season! Award winning author, Brynne Weaver, is quickly taking over the dark romance genre with lovable characters and a bit of comedy thrown in. Her newest series released book one this month.Graciously, Brynne answered a few questions exclusively for me and our indie bookstore! KL: The first novel Tourist Season in your newest trilogy, Seasons of Carnage, releases September 23rd. On tiktok, you said that Tourist Season is your favorite book you’ve written and that your connection to these characters and experiences is very deep. Would you expand on that and give us a little taste of your relationship with these characters? BW: Sure! Part of my feeling of connection comes from having lived in small towns on the east coast of Canada that are similar to Cape Carnage in many ways (minus the murder—hopefully!!). These are the kinds of places where everyone knows everyone else, and they look out for each other. There are people with quirky personalities and there are strange little local histories that you only learn when you’re accepted in a place like that. I wanted to make Cape Carnage its own character, with depth and trauma and resilience all its own. But another part of that connection I feel to Tourist Season comes with the character of Arthur, the elderly “retired” serial killer who is Harper’s best friend and mentor. Arthur has early to moderate Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and Tourist Season explores not only his struggle with the symptoms of his illness, but Harper’s caregiving responsibilities. Both my maternal grandparents developed dementia, and I was very close to them, so I had a lot of personal experience with the loss of personhood that comes with AD. I later went on to work in neuroscience clinical R&D, specializing primarily in AD. And now, my stepfather has early AD, so it continues to be part of my life. I really felt ready to tackle the topic in a book, and I wanted to show the multifaceted nature of an elderly character going through this process. I feel that modern Western society is often quick to infantilize the elderly, and having been raised with my grandparents, I’ve always felt that was morally wrong. Arthur is fierce, brilliant, funny, grumpy, loving, and most importantly, deeply human. KL: In The Ruinous Love trilogy, you enjoyed ruining some favorite foods for your readers. Orzo, I get it, cookies and cream, nice, cotton candy, sweet, pizza and beer though, that got me. Can your readers expect to have their palettes ruined more, or is there a different set of surprises we can look forward to? Any hints? BW: There are a couple of lines about hamburgers that might get to some readers! It’s really only two lines, but they’re pretty gross if you have a vivid imagination. There are maybe a couple of things that appear in the second book as well, but again, they’re not as bad! At least, not to me haha. KL: Book one of The Ruinous Love trilogy, Butcher & Blackbird has been picked up for a film adaptation. What has that been like for you? Has it impacted the way you write your upcoming novels? BW: Probably unsurprisingly, it’s so exciting to be in this process! I’m an executive producer, so I’ve been very involved in the process so far. It’s been amazing to see it slowly coming together (and one thing I’ve learned is that it takes a while as it’s truly a monumental task!). I personally am not super prescriptive in what I want to see brought through from the book to the screen. The film team are artists, and they’re creating their own art from mine, so I want to see how they interpret certain aspects of the characters and different scenes. It’s incredibly fun for me to watch it unfold as a result. It hasn’t changed anything about the way that I write, however. My style has often been described as ‘cinematic’—I have a kind of hyper-visualization of scenes, and I try to put them down onto the page with the hope that readers will be able to see what I see. I think my voice just lends itself well to adaptation as a result (at least, I hope so haha!). KL: With your love of velociraptors and alien movies, can your readers expect to see any comedic dinosaur dark romances in the future? BW: HAHA who knows?! I do think there should be more dinosaur shifter romances out there! KL: Thank you so much for your time, Brynne and your support for our indie bookstore! We are excited to have signed up for the Authorless Launch Party with bookplates for your upcoming release, Tourist Season. If you haven’t already, call, come by, or order your copy today with Bazoo Books! Goodie bags with party favors are available while supplies last! You can find out more about Brynne and her works at www.brynneweaverbooks.com .

What Dystopia? By Matt Petree Do you ever feel like the world is coming apart around you? Are you watching real and terrible events happen daily, feeling powerless? Are you exhausted by the constant barrage of bad news? Do you find it difficult to relate to family and friends who glorify that same bad news? Are you tired of being told that war is peace, that freedom is slavery and that ignorance is strength? Now, this isn’t a debate about what is and isn’t. I just want to provide a better outlook for whoever needs it. While we at Bazoo Books love to offer escapism to get away from the trials of real life, I feel that these books face the world as it is with acceptance and provide an honest track to contentment in tough times. A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers  In only 147 pages Becky Chambers makes me care for and love a world, Panga, and characters Dex and Splendid Speckled Mosscap. I also love that name. She imagines and builds a world where kindness, curiosity, and care shape daily life. Through the journey of a tea monk and a robot, the story asks what it means to live well and with purpose. It’s not shy to say to us that connection and compassion can guide the way. The book is filled to the brim with warmth. It’s a cozy Sci-fi story showing that hope can be found in small acts of kindness and shared moments of vulnerability. It’s a tender vision of a future where humanity and nature learn to thrive together. For in Panga, humans have figured out how to live in balance with their natural world. And, of course, there are robots!

Local Author Daniel Meyer Interviewed By Kaela Lockard

Although I was born and raised in Missouri—with Ozarkers on both sides of my family—I had the distinct pleasure of living for eleven years in east-central Kentucky. I lived in the heart of the bluegrass, surrounded by rolling hills, white rail fences, and horse farms (yes, they call them “horse farms” and not ranches, and it baffled me). I came to develop a palate for bourbon, mint juleps and old fashioneds, and I even went to the Kentucky Derby, bedecked in a big damn hat with a cluster of pink velvet roses. But I meant plenty of Appalachian folks and traveled into the rural Appalachian foothills. I learned, during my time in Kentucky, to think of Appalachians as Ozarkers’ older, more serious cousins. I fell in love with Kentucky/Appalachian writing—fantasy, gothic, horror, and even science fiction! I enjoyed time with Kentucky’s literary folks, meeting and spending time with some extremely fine authors. Reading plenty of others. Kentucky can boast of incredible working authors, essayists, and poets, such as Silas House, Carter Sickels, Frank X. Walker, Crystal Wilkinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Ada Limón, and others... But right now, I am delighted to introduce you to some fine Appalachian speculative fiction! Christopher Rowe. I have to start with my friend and mentor, Christopher Rowe ( https://www.christopherrowe.net/ ). His work is weird, deep, and smart as hell. Probably his most approachable work is the novella, THE NAVIGATING FOX. This novella brings you into a world of talking animals, trickery, and possibly the end of the world. It’s, by turns, wise and weird, with you turning pages for the thing that’s just beyond the edge of your awareness. You can also read the short story “Knowledgeable Creatures” related to THE NAVIGATING FOX, here: https://reactormag.com/knowledgeable-creatures-christopher-rowe// . But please, don’t stop there. Get THESE PRISONING HILLS into your life for the weirdest science fiction ride through the future you’ve never imagined! For Rowe’s weird Appalachian science fiction (his rural fabulism), jump straight into THESE PRISONING HILLS. If you want to know where each comes from, you can read the highly lauded novelette “The Voluntary State” related to THESE PRISONING HILLS here: https://www.lexal.net/scifi/scifiction/originals/originals_archive/rowe/rowe1.html . Alix E. Harrow. Alix E. Harrow ( https://alixeharrow.wixsite.com/author/short-fiction ) writes fantasy and southern gothic novels that are breathtaking in the power of their prose. The complexity of the plotting of the far-reaching THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES takes folk magic and fairy tales and sisterhood, and weaves them together impossibly beautifully against a backdrop a world where men fear women’s power. It is chillingly recognizable, and yet magically distant. THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES was on my “must-read” or “best of” lists for easily two years after I read it. And when I say that Alix E. Harrow’s prose is breathtaking, it is also powerfully well-observed. In STARLING HOUSE, she writes a gothic “haunted house” (or is it?) tale set in modern Kentucky. Her details are so sharp, you’ll gasp at how recognizable the small-town characters are. (And the places… there may be mention of a Mexican restaurant that used to be a Hardee’s.) And, of course, THE TEN-THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY is a fabulous fantasy novel that rushes along through worlds real and imagined with equal beauty and ferocity. Harrow is a delight! (And if you want to read some of her darker, short fiction, I recommend starting with “Mr. Death”: https://www.apexbookcompany.com/a/blog/apex-magazine/post/mr-death and “The Long Way Up”: https://psychopomp.com/deadlands/issue-09/the-long-way-up My suggestion? Have tissues at the ready!) Lee Mandelo. Lee Mandelo ( https://leemandelo.com/ ) is brilliant, queer, and his books are a combination of scary and weirdly sexy that makes you feel some kind of way. If gay ghosts, comeuppance historical feminism, or mean protagonists make you uncomfortable, well, give Lee a miss. But if you’re looking for writing that alternates between hot and chilling, with superlative prose and a sense of place that draws you in, don’t sleep on him. Lee’s works include the incredible gothic, SUMMER SONS, as well as FEED THEM SILENCE and the chilling novella, THE WOODS ALL BLACK. I just finished THE WOODS ALL BLACK and I’m still recovering, thank you very much! Part of me is still in far eastern Appalachia in the early twentieth century, with a shell shocked World War I veteran and a town seething with so much hatred, you can practically taste it in the water like coal slag… If these sound interesting, grab them at Bazoo Books or order them on Bazoo’s corner of Bookshop. https://bookshop.org/shop/bazoobooks . Don’t forget to support your local, independent bookseller! Bonus Material! If you’re looking to lean into the Appalachian vibe, and horror is your thing, I cannot recommend highly enough the podcast “Old Gods of Appalachia” ( https://www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/ ) It is lovely, lush, intricate, beautiful, and disturbing. It is written by actual Appalachian folks, and when you hear it—the rich sound palate, the history, the superstitions, the people—you will understand why I call Appalachians cousins. (And my final, final tip: if you fall in love with the world of the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast, they also made a tabletop role-playing game system for the world they create.)

interview by Cassie E. Brown 

My new recent favorite is STARTER VILLAIN by John Scalzi. I recently discovered Scalzi, and what a treasure! And when I say “I recently discovered John Scalzi” I mean “like a European explorer discovered terra incognito.” Which is to say, he was there the entire time, other people knew about him en masse, and yet I felt like I really accomplished something when I did it. I positively devoured Scalzi’s books, REDSHIRTS, STARTER VILLAIN, and KAIJU PRESERVATION SOCIETY, ate them so fast, dear reader, I should have gotten an ice cream headache. They were the absolute delight I needed to move me out of a reading funk. Scalzi’s prose is fast, witty, and smart. It manages to be genuinely funny without being smarmy or aiming to hurt the wrong people. But STARTER VILLAIN is a cat book. Such a cat book. Hera is a great cat. Saying more would ruin your journey. But please, get you some STARTER VILLAIN in your life. (And Scalzi generally!) The next cat book I recommend is THE AERONAUT’S WINDLASS by Jim Butcher. Yes, I know Butcher is better known for The Dresden Files. And I love Harry as much as the next person. But this one-off adventure of steampower and airships is a delight. It’s wild and grand! It’s far less smartassed than the Dresden files, but still not sedate or self-serious. It feels like a steampunk high-adventure. And yes, cats. A whole positively fascinating society of cats. If you’re looking for something that’s hefty (it’s a thick book), but which is clever and fast-paced enough to draw you through, grab your goggles and jump in. And lastly, I have to admit, I am not a romance reader. And cozies aren’t really my thing. But I guess a cozy, sapphic, high-fantasy romance that features a sword-slinging orc who really just wants to settle down and open up a coffee shop is simply too awesome for genre. So LEGENDS & LATTES (yes, a title reference to Dungeons & Dragons, certainly), by Travis Baldree is a sheer delight. It features Amity the dire-cat as a shop mascot and plot point. The story follows an orc who has tasted the miracle that is coffee whilst adventuring over the years, and now wants more than anything to (literally) hang up her sword and open a coffee shop… in a land that has no idea what coffee is. It’s charming. It hits every Dungeons & Dragons and high-fantasy game note pitch perfectly, while also turning it on its head. The characters are lovely. The prose is quick. The read is, by turns, warm, brisk, and deeply satisfying. Just like a perfect cup of coffee. Maybe I love it so much because, in the end, the story tells a story of friendship and comradery, rather than just a straight up romance. Plus, giant cat. Did I mention there’s a huge cat? If you have a favorite cat-adjacent genre book, send it my way! If these sound interesting, grab them at Bazoo Books or order them on Bazoo’s corner of Bookshop. https://bookshop.org/shop/bazoobooks . Don’t forget to support your local, independent bookseller!