Bookwild - Early 2023 Books We're Excited About

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

We continue our discussion on books we are looking forward to in 2023.Follow us on Instagram:Gare @gareindeedreadsKate @thegirlwiththecookonthecouchBooks We Talked AboutWe’re All LyingThe Survivor/Those Empty EyesThe Girl Who Was TakenWhat Lies in the WoodsThe Last Winter of Dani LansingAmerican PsychoThe Shards Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

Hey guys, welcome to the Killing the Tea podcast. This is Gare and Kate. And we are going to be discussing all things chills, thrills and kills. Kate and I are going to be talking about our favorite books, TV shows and movies that are in the thriller or crime fiction genre, as well as some reading habits and other items related to how we met on Bookstagram that will fit in with this podcast. So, Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope that you have fun and get totally terrified, dying to know. Your other two picks. My other ones. So, one that I am excited for, and I actually have an arc of, I think Tyler just stomped up the stairs, but I thought he was already up here. Yeah, he did. I just got really paranoid. I thought he was in his office, and I heard.

like something on the stairs and I was like, this is, so you got an arc of it? Yes. So this is, yes. So, good God.

I love you so much. This is so special tonight. So you got a physical arc of it? No. So I have a digital or I have like a, she sent me like, why can't I explain this? I got a file that you send to your Kindle.

So it wasn't necessarily like through neck galley, but the author reached out to me is what I'm trying to say. So the author reached out when she saw my podcast last or this past year and sent me everything. And her book looks so good. And so actually she's going to be on between the lines in March. But her book is called We're All Lying by Marie Still. The cover is amazing. You will love the cover is gorgeous. Yes.

So, stumbling is hunting casts. Cass lives an enviable life, a successful career, two great kids and a handsome husband. Then an email from her husband's mistress, Emma, brings the facade of perfection crumbling around her, setting off a chain of events where buried secrets come back to haunt her. Another email turns into stalking and escalates into much worse. Ethan and Cass try to move on. Then Emma disappears. longer considered a victim. Cass finds herself the prime suspect and sent her the investigation. Her dark secrets, including ones she didn't even know existed, threatened to destroy everything

they've worked for. Sounds so fun. I just haven't read it yet, but I'm really excited. If you would have told me, if you would have said, or well, I guess I suggested five, but like, if you would have been, if I would have been like, do you want to do five and you were like, I want to do six, that would have been my six one. That's on my list. That's the one I figured we were, wouldn't necessarily only because she just reached out to me last year. So I was like maybe who knows if he'll know that one. I even, I have it on that galley. Nice. And just to prove to you that this was on my radar before just now, it's on my list of like the 25 thrillers that I wrote about for she reads and sent to them like a month ago. So like I sent that to them a month ago saying

and like this is one of the books that I really can't wait to read. So, oh, I love that. Fucking nuts. That is crazy. So we kind of had four. Yeah. In that we were both thinking about. Yeah.

That one. One of mine is very niche. So like I didn't expect you but to have it. But my other one is definitely one that I think if it's not on your radar already, it will be after I read the synopsis. Yeah. But that one is. sounds so good.

I know. She's really funny on Instagram, too. Marie still writes, is her account. I'm going to follow her right now. Yeah. And she, like, posts about, like, kind of what she's working on, too. Because I'm obsessed with the cover, too. I love that cover so much.

Oh, I do follow her. Oh, nice. That's exciting. Yeah. Yeah, she's super nice. I'm very excited for this book. Yeah, me too. Almost at an embarrassing amount. I'm excited. Yeah, yeah, that's going to be really good. Do you want me to put your name next to it and we can read it together? Yes, definitely. Yeah, especially since we both have it already even.

I'm going to send you what I have for NetGalley. after this. And then I'm going to send you what I have for... I've got one. All right. This is the one. If you are not interested in this book... Mm-hmm.

I'm going to pull it up and save it. I will be so surprised if you're not interested in this. This is one that I'm dying to read. And it's another one that I have saved for the week of Christmas that I'm off from work. So I can just... I love it.

...all the time to say. stay up and read it. That sounds so cozy and perfect. Oh my god. I love a staycation. I drink hot chocolate. I love. Oh, never mind. Oh, I hate hot chocolate. I will drink coffee like it's my job. Okay. I drink ice coffee year round. Me too. I typically don't drink it warm. if I make coffee at home, like, I don't mind warm coffee or hot coffee, I guess. But that's the only thing that I will drink. I do not like hot chocolate. I do not like warm beverages.

I will probably, no, no. Interesting. It's very strange to me. It reminds me of just, I don't know. I'll tell you later. Okay. That works. Oh, my goodness.

Okay, so there's a book. There's a book. There's a book coming out that I am very excited about. And it comes out on, let me show you here. I think January, January 17th. Okay, it is called What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall. Oh, that sounds great. And I'm just going to read the full synopsis because like the way that her publisher did this,

like I'm going to read this verbatim because it just sounds so freaking amazing. There's so many elements to it. Just be ready for your mind to people. Ooh. They were 11 when they sent a killer to prison and they were heroes. But they were liars. Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. 22 years ago, she and two of her best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder.

They called it the goddess game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her 17 stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girl's testimony put away a serial killer wanted for murdering six women, and they were heroes. They were also liars. For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for, but now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods, no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be. That sounds amazing.

And the cover is beautiful. The cover is gorgeous. That is beautiful. But the fact that they were in the woods because they wanted to be witches and, like, had this thing called the goddess game. It's just giving me like craft vibes, like the movie The Craft. Yeah. But I'm also very curious, like, I don't know.

I read a book recently that I was very excited about, about a group of friends who accidentally killed a man, but he turned out to be a serial killer, so they, like, didn't feel as, like, guilty. Or I guess that was like the, you know, thing that was, like, supposed to, turn the plot into something different, but it just didn't pick the spot for me, and I didn't really love it as much as I wanted to. So I feel like this is like a redemption. You know what I mean?

Like, this is something that like, yes. Could be what I was expecting in that. Yeah. And I'm just really excited for it. It looks really good. It looks amazing. I requested that one too. So I need to email them too. Yeah. Looks like I requested it. I didn't remember it necessarily, but I did request it. So we'll see. But that sounds so good. I hope you get it. I hope you get it. Yeah. I will send out emails tomorrow. I promise. I'll help you. Thank you. I'm down. We need to read a bunch of arcs clearly for 2023. This is. Oh, I love that. I love the cover. It's so, so pretty. Oh, here's another thing. Here's another selling point. for you. Alice Feeney

is blurbed on the cover saying it's clever and deliciously dark. Oh, well, that definitely sounds like on it. Yeah. You already did, but yeah. Yeah. So I think that's definitely one that we will want to read together

too. Yeah. I think so too. I think another one that we might want to read together actually. Okay. Another one that we might want to read together. is The Survivor by Charlie Donnelly, which comes out on March 28. God, yes.

Another beautiful cover. There are so many great covers in 2023. Oh, my God. I love the cover. I love the cover. So this one is a very long synopsis. Read it. Just, I mean, it's Charlie.

But I also want to say that this is actually very exciting because I have no idea what this book is about. Yeah. I saw that he had a new one coming out. I don't know what it's about and I added it to my wish list because it's Charlie. Right. And I love him. So this is actually like very cool because you're going to be the one to tell me first what the book's actually about. I can get ready for her for this couple paragraphs.

Okay. The Survivor. Alex Armstrong has changed everything about herself. Her name, her appearance, her backstory. She's no longer the terrified teenager, a rapt audience saw on television emerging in handcuffs from the quiet suburban home the night her family was massacred. That girl, Alexandra Quinlan, was accused of the killings, fought to clear her name, and later took the stand during her highly publicized defamation lawsuit. They captured the attention of the nation. It's been 10 years since, and Alex hasn't stopped searching for answers about the night her family was killed, even in.

as she continues to hide her real identity from true crime fanatics and grasping reporters still desperate to locate her. As a legal investigator, she works tirelessly to secure justice for others, too. People like Matthew Claymore, who's under suspicion in the disappearance of his girlfriend, a student journalist named Laura McAllister. I am frozen again. Laura was about to break a major story about rape and cover up. on her college campus, Alex believes Matthew is innocent and unearths stunning revelations

about the university's faculty, fraternity members, and powerful parents willing to do anything to protect their children. Most shocking of all, as Alex digs into Laura's disappearance, she realizes their unexpected connections to the murder of her own family. For as different as the crimes may seem, they each hinge on the sinister truth. No one is quite who they seem to be. that one has a lot going on. But they're all plot points and things that I'm like super into as a thriller. Like if you have to turn academia and like. Yeah.

And like a publicized trial. It has like Amanda Knox vibes a little bit. Like the like did the girl do it and everything. The media is obsessed with it. I love it. I'm excited. Yeah. Mm-hmm. that's going to be really good.

That was going to be so good. I can't wait. Yeah. I know. I'm like just ready for it to be 2023. So there are some books that I don't get a physical arc of and that's fine. Charlie is one of those authors that like if I don't get a physical arc of this book, I'm going to wait until it's published.

so I can go buy a physical copy because like there's no way like I'm just so excited for it. I know. Oh, maybe it's on NetGalley is another title. Interestingly. Because there's a book on here called Those Empty Eyes with the Same Hair. And it says the same publication date from him. So I wonder if they just send it to you. I wonder if they changed it.

that would be very interesting I'm gonna request it I wonder if not many people have um so I actually found on Amazon um a Charlie Dunley book called those empty eyes

on Amazon oh wow so maybe it's maybe it's maybe it's titled differently Yeah. In another country?

Yeah. What am I looking at? Who knows? Because the Survivors is on my wish list. So I know that's the title. Me too. And I don't see another version on his author profile. That's weird.

It's such a similar cover that like it has to be. I kind of like those empty eyes better. I do too. Especially if it's like circling around like media attention and stuff. Yeah. And I'm also wondering now which one it's going to be published as.

I know because it has the same publication date too. Oh yeah. It has the same synopsis here as well. Well, hopefully I wake up tomorrow morning and it says my request was approved. That would be amazing. That would be so great. That would be amazing.

Well, I guess we'll find out what it's actually called. I know. Someday. Probably by the time we publish this, we'll know. So I'll pop it up on the screen or something. I will say the copy that I had on my wish list was Survivor. We do. And now that I just looked at it, it says those empty eyes.

So I think those empty eyes is probably the new title. Oh. Well, I like that title better. Me too. So good for him. Good. And good for us. So you know what?

Everybody just needs to read the Charlie Donnelly book that comes out in March. We think it's going to be called those empty eyes. But just read the Charlie Donnelly one in March. That his book, The Girl Who Has Taken. I loved that one. I was just scrolling his list and I'm like, all of these were so good. Oh my God, I just thought of the book I told you not to read while Tyler was gone because you're going to cry. It came back. Oh, because I'm going to cry. That's what it was.

The last winter of Danny Lansing. Yes, that's what you said. You said I would get too depressed. So good. So good. So depressing. So good. So depressing. Where is it? I know I have it here. I thought the other day. You'll love that. You know what I really appreciate about the book? And this is not a spoiler. the thing that I really appreciate about this book is that usually when there's something where parents are mourning a child the mother is the one that's depressed and feeling sorry for herself and the father is the one that's like hell bent on revenge

and in this book they actually reverse those roles like the mother's the one that's out on the streets trying to find out who killed their daughter and the father. is the one who's like at home and thinks that his the ghost of his dead daughter is visiting him. But look how gorgeous that cover is. I'm obsessed with that. It's beautiful. I am so obsessed. It's like haunting.

It is so, well, when you get into the story. Right. You're going to be so pissed, but you're also going to be like that was, I bet you you'll, I bet you'll tell me this is one of the best books you've ever read. Oh, but I need to be ready to cry again. I don't even think it's necessarily like there are certain things in a book where the reveal is sad instead of twisted. Do you know what I mean? Like there's three books I can think of right now.

This one, the ending to the book Ohio by Stephen Markley and the ending to the long and far away gone by Lou Bernie, where they just had things that like I was like, I don't know if I wanted to know the truth. because it was a lot more sad than me not knowing. No. So it's kind of like, I think if you're like prepared to be sad or you don't mind being sad, you'll be like, wow, that was really like depressing and fucked up, but like also beautiful. But like if you're looking for like, oh my God, like, what could wild twisty revelation happen? And you're just like, oh, no, it was just something that's like, it's kind of like Karen Slaughter-esque. like you find out the real true ugliness and how shitty people can be.

Yeah, that was like all good people here. Yeah, this is, these are sadder. But yeah, you said they're more intense. Yeah. Mm. You love it. Yeah. I just can't read it when I'm PMSing or I'll fall apart.

So that's all I have to make sure I don't do. Yeah. Yeah. I do have I have one more on my list Go for it And it has a long synopsis So I'm glad you read through the Charlie

Donnelly one It was like a lot But I feel like he did need They did need to explain all of that Yeah So this is one I'm very interested in This Brett Easton Ellis is an author

That I wanted to read more by because his books have little Easter eggs where they're kind of connected. And I love the movie American Psycho and I love the movie The Rules of Attraction. So what I've come to find out is he has a whopper. And I mean like, I think this book is close to 700 pages coming out in January.

Whoa. And it's called The Shards. The Shards. by Brett Easton Ellis. It is described as a masterful new novel that is a story about the end of innocence and the passage from adolescence into adulthood set in a vibrantly fictionalized Los Angeles in 1981 as a serial killer begins targeting teenagers throughout the city. So it says that 17-year-old Brett, so that's very meta.

Like it's Brett Easton Ellis and the main characters are right so also this is a huge synopsis like good for you yeah brett is a senior at the exclusive buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past robert mallory is bright handsome charismatic in shielding a secret from brett and his friends even as he becomes part of their tightly knit circle brett's obsession with mallory is equalled by his increasingly unsettling pre-executive occupation with the trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Brett and his friends, taunting them, and Brett in particular, with grotesque threats and horrific, sharp local acts of violence. The coincidences are uncanny, but they also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. can he trust his friends or his own mind to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and his own innate desires by unhealthy fixations, he spirals into paranoia

isolation as the relationship between the trawler and Robert Mallory hurdles toward a collision. So it sounds like maybe this could be drawn from something in his real life. I mean, it seems like it, right? Maybe the serial killer part is just, I don't know. The serial killer was active in 1981 in Los Angeles, the night crawler. I don't know my real-life serial killers very well. I don't know. Maybe, I don't know.

It sounds very good. Yeah, it does. That sounds really, I mean, and good for him for writing that many pages, man. I just can't wait to read it because I feel like the thing with American Psycho is I've heard that it's... 608 pages. Oh.

It's better than 800. Yeah, I thought it was seven. So that's fine. But I... They have so many different covers for it. They have a Kindle edition, a hardcover edition. There are. Which one are you looking at?

Are you looking at a red one or a green one? A red one. I want to see the green one, though. I know. I'm going to send it to you. It's way sexier. Yeah, the red one kind of creeps me out. The red one also makes me think that it may be the serial killer is based on, I said the night crawler,

but it's actually the night stalker who was Richard Ramirez. And it looks like he was an active serial killer. in California between 1984 and 85. There's close. You were. But wow. Yeah, this sounds incredible. It does.

Yeah, I don't see the green cover. Oh, oh my. Okay. That looks so good. I was like, I will screenshot it if you need me to. Oh, that's gorgeous. That's beautiful. You're like, I would like that version.

I need to find that version. It says it's the hardcover version. Yeah, on Amazon it says the hardcover version is the red one. Oh, okay. But I'm wondering if it's like international. That's a good point. That's what I'll be ordering. But January 17th, that one comes out.

That comes out soon. So that sounds incredible. I have it on NetGalley. I'm going to want a physical copy. Yeah. I just really have heard amazing things about his writing. There's also a Swedish cover, so I was sending that to you. Sounds like his writing is right up our alley.

Yeah. I mean, well, I think the only one that I haven't, oh, that cover is beautiful too. Mm-hmm. Only. I love seeing how many different ways that he tried to portray it. I um yeah I get like I mean I guess his books are all disturbing but they're disturbing on different elements like some of them are about like drugs and like people who are just like messed up and selfish and stuff like that but um I've heard American Psycho is like the one that's like the most like thriller but this sounds

like it's going to be like a return to that sort of thriller genre that's awesome so I'm very excited for it now I have a big book sheree in January. Yeah, it's going to be so good. I can't believe that we had three out of five in common. I know. And you almost had, we're all lying.

We're all lying. You almost had that one. So I had, we're all lying on my list and my five. And I took it off to include the shards because of the fact that I've been looking forward to this book for months and months and months. And like, I think I found out about the shards,

probably July or August. Oh, wow. And spent on my wish list for a long time. You're really. Because I was like perusing. And I was like, I'm ready. And I want to read it. So I kind of did that because I was like,

I wanted something. I wanted my list to be like kind of all over the place. because you know how, like, we do this? And I'm like, my five books are all like serial killers or psychological killers. And, like, yours are like a nice, equal mix and, like, a good balance. That's what I kind of wanted for my thrillers. Like domestic suspense, you know, Peter Swanson, who's, you know, always perfect. Always.

And Mary Kay. Mary Kay. Mary Kay. So, yeah, 2020 is going to be bomb-dive. com.