Bookwild - Jaw Dropping Books to Read

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

This week we're talking about books that blew our minds!Follow us on Instagram:Gare @gareindeedreadsKate @thegirlwiththecookonthecouchBooks We Talked AboutVerityUgly LoveThe Girl Who Was TakenYou Will Remember MeI Found YouPretty Girls DancingChasing the BoogeymanThe ReunionDate NightThose GirlsDark RoadsNever Let You GoMy Lovely WifeGood Rich PeopleBath HausJar of Hearts 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. I do have another one that people are also divided on. I'm loving controversial Kate today. I know, and I wasn't even trying to be. I was like, you know what? But Verity by Colleen Hoover. It's only Colleen Hoover I've read.

Loved it, though. Loved it, loved it, loved it. So Loen is a struggling writer. She's basically running out of money. And she gets this like offer of a lifetime. So this husband, Jeremy, who's the husband of a bestselling author, Verity, has hired Loan to complete the remaining books in a successful series that his injured wife can't finish anymore. So Loan's like, well, I can make money.

Sure. And so she gets there at their house. She's like guessing that she's going to go through all the notes and the outlines. But she didn't expect to find an unfinished autobiography that Verity had never intended for anybody to read. So all through this autobiography are all these really crazy admissions and stories and including what happen to Verity's, what she remembers happened to her daughter on the day that her daughter died. So Loewen keeps the script from Jeremy. She's going to like keep writing the finishing the other books.

But now she's starting to have feelings for Jeremy. And there is Jeremy's hot. Of course Jeremy's hot. Like, Jeremy is really hot. And, yeah, she doesn't want to have to tell him what Verity. has written in her autobiography. And then the ending is technically up in the air. You kind of end up deciding what you think really happened.

I don't remember the ending. You don't? No, I just remember loving it and being obsessed. And I remember being like, oh, my God, that was mind-blowing. But you know what? I still went out and bought the special edition that has the bonus chat. in it. Have you read it? Nope. I just wanted to have it. Because when, so I read Verity when it first came out. I did too. Before it blew up the way that it did. So I was like, oh my God, I love that.

But now that with book talk and everything and Colleen Hoover being so popular right now, like there's like a lot of TikToks and different things about it. And I was like, I'm going to buy that special edition for the purpose of rereading. this book. Yeah. That's a good idea. So, I just need to reread it. But then I got hooked on some of her other stories and... As easy to do. If you love Verity, because of some of the relationship things, then I think you will love, ugly love. And you actually told me that about, uh, liking Evelyn Hugo in the podcast we just put out today. So maybe I need to read Ugly Love. You need to read Ugly Love. And then another thing that I told you in the podcast in a previous episode is to watch Basic Instinct.

I know. We have it like in our list. We haven't watched a movie for a second, but we've been working through our watch list. That would be like your like instead of like a double feature movie, like if you read Ugly Love and then you watched Basic Instinct, you'd be like, wow, that was two amazing experiences. I don't wrong. I think I was like that. Yeah. Unless you save it for when you're in a reading rut.

That's a good point. Colleen Hoover always gets me out of a reading rut. Yeah. Same. Yeah. Yep. I'm right there with you. But yeah, Verity.

Verity definitely messed with a lot of people's emotions and a lot of people with what they believed. Yeah. Was real and what they believed was not real. Speaking of books that have an ending that make you believe or not believe certain things, I have another one that might be an honorable mention of you from you.

Honorable mention of you. Of me. Well, this book does make me think of you. Aw. Is it... Is it the Ursulina? No. Okay.

Go on. The girl who was taken by Charlie Dunley. Oh, yeah. I didn't, I don't have that one. Okay. Everything about this book is amazing for me, like the dual timeline. If you haven't been paying attention to us talking about this book nonstop, it is about two high-stop.

school girls who are not friends. They do not run in the same social circles. They both disappear from a small town in North Carolina. No clues are found. And one of them ends up surfacing and says that she escaped from a bunker that was deep in the woods. And a year later, she kind of is this like almost viral sensation. Like everybody's talking about the girl who survived.

She has no memory of what happened, but she also is like basically releasing a best-selling book about her ordeal and going on like talk shows and she's just like a celebrity. Meanwhile, the other girl is not found. She's still missing. And her sister is a forensic pathologist who's just basically. not at the point where she has any more hope. She's not thinking my sister's going to be found. She's just like, I want closure when they find her dead body. And then the shit hits the fan and dual timeline and craziness.

And it's just one of my favorite books in the entire world. It's so good. And the ending to it shattered my heart and soul. Yes. And I loved that for me. I read it in 2017. It was so long ago. Yeah, I loved Verity.

I've loved so many books, but I'm like, I don't remember the details of the ending. I just remember loving the book. Yeah. I will never forget the ending to The Girl Who Disappeared by Charlie Dunley. Girl who is taken. The girl who was taken. And she disappeared. And she did disappear when she was taken.

Yeah. I have one that actually has a very unique ending as well. And it, you will remember me by a Hannah Mary McKinnon. And it is... It was very good. So this guy wakes up on a beach in Maryland, and he has a gash on his head. And he's just wearing his swim trunks. And he doesn't know who he is.

He doesn't know where he is. Like he just doesn't know anything. So he. And he's hot. He and he's hot. He's so hot. I think he has gray eyes. I think he's one of those guys.

But he must, I can remember, well, it doesn't say, but he goes back to his hometown in Maine. So I think he has some memories from like way longer ago. He goes back to his hometown to try to figure out what's up, who am I? And meanwhile, there's someone who just, there's a girl who just woke up in her apartment and her boyfriend went missing after he went out for a swim. and so then now she's looking for him and she's obviously looking for this guy who's now gone back to Maine. So when he goes back to Maine,

his step sister sees him and basically kind of like takes her back to their house and she starts like helping him remember things. But he's starting to feel like there are other things to remember that seem a little shady, but he can't remember what they are. So you have Lily just like trying to get to him and not knowing where he is, and then him not even remembering Lily. And then his step sister sometimes telling him things and sometimes not.

And it is very twisty, and it is not going to be the ending you're expecting. I love that book. This is just, I guess, an honorable mention. but if you enjoyed that book by Hannah Mary McKinnon, I think you will also enjoy the book I Found You by Lisa Jewell. Yes, I completely agree. It's a very similar plot, but it's also very, very, very, they're both very different, but they're both incredible books that I think.

That I want to read again. I love that one too. Speaking of books or things and situations that scare. the ever-loving hell out of me. The book, Chasing the Boogie Man by Richard Chishmars or Chismer, I am obsessed with, but also terrified of. This is one that combines Stephen King with Michelle McNamara, author of All Be Gone in the Dark. It says in the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begun to turn up in a small Maryland town. The grizzly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is loose in a quiet suburb.

But soon a rumor begins to spread that the evil-stalking local teens is not entirely human. Law enforcement as well as members of the FBI are certain the killer is a living, breathing madman, and he's playing games with them. recent college graduate Richard Chisholmarr returns to his hometown just as a curfew is enacted and a neighborhood watch is formed. He soon finds himself thrust into the real-life horror story and the twist of this book is, well, without twisting, the end twist. The whole premise of why I love this book and why it was so creepy is it says here, inspired by the terrifying events, Richard White's personal account of the serial killers' reign of terror unaware that these events will continue to haunt him for years to come. It is the ultimate marriage between horror fiction and true crime. So he basically wrote this book. None of this ever

happened. He wrote a fictional story as if it was a memoir. Yeah, that's so unique. And I love that. And it scared and creeped me out to the point that I was like, I know this happened. I was trying to look up this case. Wow. I just haven't heard on my Kindle. I just haven't read it. Yeah.

It is so good. It is so unique as a premise. Um, and I just absolutely loved, loved that book. Um, yeah. written in the way that it's like crime fiction and a memoir over something that never happened. So like all he did was take him and a couple of his friends and his family members and write a book as like,

this is what I imagine my life would have been like if there was a serial killer haunting my like quiet small town when I was in college. It's kind of meta to do it that way. I don't know how many of them are real. But it's kind of similar to what Brett Easton Ellis did with the Shards. Like his main character's name is Brett Ellis. Yeah. But chasing the boogeyman, hands down, one of the best books I've ever read in my entire life.

Man. It has a very similar feel to like Stephen King. Like, I kind of get the same vibe as, like, It. Yeah. But, yeah, it's top-notch. Amazing. Amazing story. You've got to read that one next, too.

Yeah, I think you would love it. I have another one that definitely blew my mind at the end. And it's The Reunion by Samantha Hayes. They were all there the day her sister went missing, but who is lying and who is next? then in charge of her little sister at the beach claire allowed eleanor to walk to the shop alone to buy an ice cream placing a coin into her hand clara told her to be quick knowing how much she wanted the freedom eleanor never came back now the time has finally come to sell the family farm and claire is organizing a reunion of her dearest friends the same friends who were present

the day her sister went missing when another girl disappears long buried secrets begin to surface one of the group hides the darkest secrets of them all. And I am losing my voice. The ending, like, it's just like the last probably 5% of the book. You're just in shock. And it's really good. Like, it's really hard to put down. It's definitely a book like that.

So you won't be mad at me if I start that tonight instead of We Were Liars? Mm-mm. No, that one is. technically more all-around impressive. You recommended that you recommended that book to me. You recommended that book to me. Like I think when we first started doing the podcast

and I just like looked and it's still on my wish list, which means I haven't bought it yet. But when you recommend books, I put them on my wish list on Amazon. And that one just... So good. I love a missing person story. story.

Mm-hmm. And then you get the, like, friends from the past story, too. Yeah, I want to read it. I want it now. You should. It's $3.99 on Kindle. I have Kindle Unlimited. It's not on Kindle and Limited.

Fuck me. I guess it's worth the four bucks. I don't know. I thought it was. But I'm still going to read it because I really want to, and it's been on my wishless for a while. I think you're really, I really think you'll enjoy that one. And then you're going to want to read Date Night, her other one that is actually, that was one of my honorable mentions because your brain feels confused the whole time you're reading it. And then it all comes together at the end.

That's on my wish list too. Mm-hmm. So. They're both really good. I trust too because I DNFed a book before we started recording and I just like really am in the mood to read something. that's going to like hold my attention. So. There's also,

there's also something said to when when somebody makes a decision that, that affects somebody else that they love like that, you know, like being like, okay, like you can, you can go get an ice cream call and like just hurry back and then. I know.

Never to be seen again. It's so like, it would be so hard to work through the guilt that you don't, have to have. Like, it is the person who took her. That's the guilty person, but you feel guilty. Right. Right. It's like, um, one thing that always haunts me is, um, do you know John Walsh? He used to be the host of, um, he was like the host of America's Most Wanted. Oh, okay. Yeah. He started doing the show because his son was like, basically murdered. Yeah, I have heard that story before.

Yeah, like the wife and the son were shopping in like a department store. And he and another like little boy were like in like where they keep the like in the department where they have the toys. And they were like kind of like arguing like this like other random little boy. They were arguing over like who plays with what toy and whatnot. And a security guard came and was like if you guys can't like stop fighting. you got to get out of here and he kicked John Walsh's son out of the store and I think he was like six or seven

Oh my God. And he was like afraid to go back in and the mother didn't know what happened and that's why the little boy was kidnapped because he was like outside of like this department store. And all I can think of is like the guilt that that

security guard must have had for the rest of his life. I mean that's a pretty like that was kind of intentionally dumb? It was intentionally dumb, but it was also like a pretty big, like, overreaction to two seven or eight year old kids, like, fighting in a department store. Go take into your office and, like, call for their mom.

Yeah, I would just be like, where was your mom? Because you're, yeah, like, young enough that, like, he probably could have looked around and found her within five or ten minutes. But, yeah, that, like, whole guilt thing over. or something like that happening. So I'm going to dive into that. I'm excited. I'm excited too.

Who are you? Man. I'm just going to go into devastating again. Okay. One author that I am completely obsessed with that I will one day not just reread my favorite book by her, but reread her entire catalog.

is Canadian author Chevy Stevens. She is an incredible storyteller. And the way that she can write a book and make it kind of feel like gritty or like very just like unsettling in like a psychological way, I'm obsessed with her. But by far her most disturbing book

that kind of gave me an anxiety attack was those girls. Have you read that one? Yes. It says life has never been easy for the three Campbell sisters. Jess, Courtney, and Danny live in a remote ranch

in Western Canada where they work hard and try to stay out of their way of their father's fists. One night a fight gets out of hand and the sisters are forced to go on the run only to get caught an even worse nightmare when their truck breaks down in a small town. Events spiral out of control and a chance encounter with the wrong people leaves them in a horrific and desperate situation. They are left with no choice but to change their names and create new lives. 18 years later, they are trying to forget what happened that summer when one of the sisters goes missing and they are pulled back into the past. It is one of the most brutal books I have ever read in my entire life.

So I haven't read it. I read Dark Roads. So I thought I'd read those girls, but I read Dark Roads by her. Dark Roads is so good. Yeah. So I need to read this one. Okay. I love, okay, I love all of Chevy Sevens bucks. Mm-hmm. Dark Roads and Never Let You Go. Mm-hmm.

my opinion, are the two lightest ones. Like, if we're going on a scale of, like, what's, like, readable and what's, like, unsettling and, like, dark and disturbing, those are your two safest bets. That makes sense, because I don't remember them being... I liked them a lot, but they weren't, like, disturbing, necessarily. I loved what she did with Dark Roads to bring awareness to the highway of tears and, like, all of the missing and murdered indigenous women. But, yeah, everything else that she's written, other than those two, very dark, unsettling, and disturbing.

Yeah. And those girls is the most dark and unsettling book that she's written in one of the most disturbing things I've ever read. Wow. That's quite a review. It'll mess with you. It'll mess with you. Like, but when you read it, you'll be like, she's such a good storyteller.

Yeah. That's how I felt with her other ones. Yeah. I love her. I will, hands down, always stand Chevy Stevens. Yeah. She actually, she actually started following me on Instagram, like, over the summer. And I was, like, freaking out.

Exciting. Because I love her so much. I um she was someone I like read a lot she was someone I read a lot on my Kindle yeah and this year I was talking to someone else about how like they should read her books like how good of an author she is and I was like you know what I cleaned off like a shelf and I bought all of her books like physical copies of them and I was like you deserve your own shelf

in this house Chevy Stevens. I love that. I love her so much. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm just like thinking about, like, I usually take the week of my birthday off from work as one of my vacations, and I think that that might be my birthday present to myself this year is to read all of her books on my vacation. That would be so cool. I love her. I like that. So another one that I

just, I still think about this book is my lovely wife by Samantha Downing. The tagline is a couple's 15 year marriage has finally gotten too interesting. Our love story is simple. I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had

kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored. We looked like a normal couple. We're your neighbors, parents of your kid's friend, the acquaintances you keep meaning to get dinner with. We all have secrets to keeping a marriage alive.

Ours just happens to be getting away with murder. That tells you a lot about what's going on through the whole book. And then the ending is just, it kind of blows your mind. It does blow your mind. Yeah, it's such a good book. Mm-hmm. I'm obsessed with Samantha Downing. I am too.

Why is she so fucking cool? She's amazing. Yeah. And that book is one of my favorite books in the entire world. Of all time. Yes. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I'm obsessed. Mm-hmm.

I also started it so good. So fun. Yeah. She's like, I feel like her and like Janie Lynn Hendricks. And there's like somebody else I'm thinking about too that I can't like her name's on the tip of my tongue. But they're so like snarky in their writing that like I just absolutely love that book. Yes. I agree. I think if anybody ever rewrote like the movie The War of the Roses, I would want it to be Samantha Downing. Ooh, hopefully she does. I just think she's fantastic.

I love the way she tells a story. I do too. She's incredible. I'm obsessed with all of your choices today. Oh, thanks. I just could hear you or listen to you talk about books all day. That's good. Because when you talk...

Yeah. Good. Maybe other people do, too. No, when you talk about books, you either get me excited for something that I haven't read or heard of, or you reignite my love of some of these other stories that we have in common. Yeah. But, yeah, my lovely wife, honestly, if you think about our friendship, makes sense as to why we both, like, love that book so much. That is like something that like there's so many elements in that book that like that's why it's like we have that in common.

Yeah. Eliza Jane Brazier in Good Rich People was really snarky. Oh yes. I loved that. Yeah. I love her. May Cobb. May Cobb is like my like Samantha Downing May Cobb, Jamie Lynn Hendrix.

Like you're right. I would love to see like those three joint forces in Wright. a fucking snarky as Hal thriller. Yes, I am so worried. That would be, yeah, that would be really cool. They need to make it happen. Yeah, I am obsessed.

I'm obsessed. I don't even know if I've talked about this book before on here, but one book that really mess with my head probably is a gay man is Bathhouse by PJ Vernon. You and I've talked about it. I don't think we've talked about on the podcast, and I haven't read it yet. You haven't read it? It's so good.

It'll totally mess with you. It's like steamy and sexy and eerie, and it kind of deals with, like, I want to say stalking in a little bit, which, like, is always something that, you know, intrigues me in a story for some reason. Yeah. But it is about a man named Oliver, who's a man named Oliver, who's a. a young recovering addict from Indiana, who finally has everything he wants in life. So he's sober. He has a wealthy partner named Nathan, who's a prominent DC trauma surgeon. There's a difference in, or there's quite a difference in their age and backgrounds, but they are happy together until Nathan goes out of town and Oliver decides to visit a bathhouse.

So anytime that you're like, oh, my partner's out of town, I think I'm going to cheat. Never really a good decision, no-brainer. But he ends up going to this bathhouse and inside he follows a man into a private room. And everything goes extremely horrible. Oliver barely escapes with his life. So after a near... Like the day he went there. He goes to a bathhouse when Nathan's out of town.

And when he goes into a private room with a man, the man tries to kill him. So here's the problem, though. He basically goes home, like bruises on his neck. But he lies to everyone because he doesn't want people to know. that he was going to a bathhouse to cheat on his partner. So when he tells this lie over being attacked, it spirals into this spider web of other lies that he has to keep up with. And he's stuck kind of trying to keep up with all of these lies,

but also realizing that for some reason, he went into that bathhouse and that man tried to kill him. Wow. It is so good. I know. You really make me want to read it too. There's a new cover too and it's like yellowish orange. Ooh.

I'm thinking all the books I want to buy. I'm starting to buy multiples and I'm just like you are crazy. I don't even know if I have a physical copy of the Samantha Downing. Oh, yeah. So. Well, my final one, I'm just going to talk about date night. Well, this is Samantha Hayes, who did the reunion. But date night is another one that it will just mess with your mind the whole way through.

So we're returning early from a disastrous date with my husband. I know something is wrong the moment the wheels crunch the gravel drive of our home. inside the TV is on and a half-eaten meal is waiting on the table. My heart stops when I find our little girl is alone in the house, and our babysitter, Sasha, is missing. Days later, when I'm arrested for Sasha's murder and torn away from my perfect little family, I wish I had told someone about the threatening note I received that morning. I'll hate myself for not finding out who the gift hidden inside my husband's wardrobe was for.

I'll scream from the rooftops that I'm innocent, but no one will listen. I will realize I was completely wrong about everything that happens that night, but will you believe me? Is she British? What? Is she British? I think so. I feel like this was. I don't know.

I'm excited. I'm very excited for this. This one just like plays with your mind the whole time because I don't think is a spoiler to say that like she's just trying, she's even doubting herself and trying to try and trying to. to like actually figure out what's happening so you just kind of have this like what is real feeling the whole time and then there are a bunch of twists at the end oh i love that even more mm-hmm i love it it's still one of my favorites it is kind of unlimited i wonder if both of hers are i think the other one was 399 for some reason oh that's right i think you i think yeah i think we already had that conversation like 20 minutes ago i think so oh god my brain today

I feel the same way. Yeah, I feel like Samantha Hayes might be like your Jennifer Hillier. Yeah, that would be a good comparison. You're very passionate when you recommend her books. And the only reason I say that is because you've recommended these to me before in the sense of like you're going to love them. Yeah. So I'm very excited. I'm going to start the

reunion The reunion I'm going to start the reunion tonight I'm so excited for you I just Oh my God I just love the sound Of the synopsis

Like when you read it to me So I know they have She I like The way they structure her synopsies Yeah Is it synopsies Synopsis

Synopsis? Synopsis Is A lot Yeah Jesus. Yeah, well, my last one to no one's surprise is Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier. Would you take everything that I love in a thriller?

You have a serial killer aspect. You have a missing person and a cold case. You have like snippets of flashbacks and you have the grittiness in the story. that Jennifer Hillier writes, I, this book just messed with me. Like, it was so dark and gritty. It was my first Jennifer Hillier book, but it was so dark and gritty. And I was like, what the hell? This is intense.

And then I realized that whatever I thought was intense was just child's play when I got to the reveal because it is about three friends growing up. and two girls and a guy in high school, the girl, one of the girls goes missing. Her name's Angela. She goes missing, and they never find her body. And then the guy grows up to be a detective because of the fact that she went missing and it's like, I'm going to be a detective and solve cases like this. And the other girl becomes very successful.

and has this perfect dream life until the police uncover the bones of Angela behind her childhood home. Yeah. And she is arrested. So you have one friend that was murdered, one friend who became a detective, and the other one who was being blamed for the murder. And the reason that everyone believes it's her is because what they don't know is that the boy or man that she was in love with in high school, that was her first boyfriend turned out to be a notorious serial killer. Yep. And then the shit hits the fan.

Yeah, that's not even all of the shit. No, no. Some of the reveals in that book, I was like, oh, my ever-loving God. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Just. Just levels of fuckery.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the best books I've ever read in my entire life. Yeah. It's really good. one of the there's not like you know sometimes you read a book and you're like oh i just wish like this part wasn't in it or i wish that this part was a little different or something like that that's one of those

books that i'm just like that's perfect cover to cover yeah there's nothing i would change about it yeah and i love that all of her books take place in like seattle i love it especially that one Yeah, that one is definitely one that needs to be in Seattle. It does. So, yeah, those are all of the books that fucked with my head. Yeah. And then next week, we're going to talk about TV shows that did it. Oh, oh.