Boozy Bookgasms - When you Love Him to Pieces...

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Scattered Bones by Nicole Scarano Who doesn’t want to fall in love with a thief, catch the attention of the gods, and embark on the most dangerously unhinged scavenger hunt imaginable—tracking down your husband’s missing body parts? Come along with the cousins as they take on this crazy, somewhat romantic adventure.   Signature Cocktail: Mezcal Bone Crusher Tonight's beverage of choice is not for the faint of heart. It is smokey, bold and the perfect cocktail for when you want to work with Death himself to piss off the rest of the gods all in the pursuit of Happily Ever After-ish. Ingredients: 8 oz Mezcal (Del Maguey VIda recommended) 2 oz fresh lime juice 2 squirts of Sriracha 2 oz simple syrup Chipotle chili powder for the rim and surface of the drink lime wheel for garnish Rim two 12oz tumblers with chili powder and fill with ice. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice and add the Mezcal, lime juice, simple syrup and sriracha. Shake well and pour into iced glasses. Sprinkle a top coat of the chili powder over the surface of the drink and garnish with the lime wheel. 

It's really bad for you not to get your sneeze out, by the way. What's going to happen? It could cause like a aneurysm. The brain is right. I already have so many other issues. I don't think that's true. Right here on Bozy BookGasms, MD. I'm basically a doctor at this point, paging Dr. Jen.

Buckle-up literature fans. We're in for some boozy bookgasms today. Join three cousins creating a titillating headspace where steamy romance novels collide with strong cocktails. So sit back, sip slow, and enjoy the ride. Welcome back, you boozy babes. This is Bozy Bookgasms. I'm Lynn.

I'm Kim. And tonight we're talking about the scattered bones by Nicole Skarano, a dark fantasy romance about grief and devotion, gods who punish and protect, and a love story that flat out refuses to die. I'd ask a very important question. do for love and how many gods would you be willing to piss off in the process. But before we start to collect these body parts, Kim, what are we drinking to eat? If you fall in love with a thief,

catch the attention of the gods and have to go on some fucked up scavenger hunt in order to find the body parts of your husband, I thought you might need a pretty stiff drink. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Ladies, I got you. You always do. Tonight's beverage of choice is the mescal bone Crusher. It's smoky and bold, and it's the perfect cocktail for when you want to work hand in hand with death himself to flip off the rest of the gods and get your happily ever after. We've got some mescal, we've got some lime juice, simple syrup. This is the killer. It's got saracha in it, which is going to jump up a bit.

Spicy. Interesting. We did the rim of it with some Chipotle chili powder just to give it that little kick up. Extra kick. Enjoy. That one's hot, ladies. Yum, yum. I love mescal though. You do love mescal, big fan.

It's making it come back. Well, we went on that trip. Remember, we had So Tal, which is also like a smoky tequila, agave drink. We're in the whole country? They can. So we're going to start with Sella is our heroine. We begin the story of her wandering in the Sivetog Desert. She's literally climbing through dunes in the sandy, endless.

desert and she's been there for weeks maybe. It's very Tomb Raider-esque. A long time. And she doesn't know where she's going. She's just following a feeling. And we don't really know what she's there to do. It was hard for me to figure out how to narrate this book because it goes back and forth between past and present. You find out bits of the story from the past that lead you to where you are in the present. But we start out in this desert and she is trying to find something. And she's hot in her skin is blistering off of her body. And we realize that she has this long-loss love that she is still beholden to. Eventually, we realize that she's looking for his body parts, his scattered bones, if you will. No many questions on this. I cannot wait to dive into this. Really bad scavenger hunt

happening. She's drawn to these parts. Yeah, his body parts. She's also carrying them all with her. In a trunk. In a trunk. Which feels like it could be heavy. Super heavy. Well, she does have a horse that suddenly is never parted from her. The horse never runs away. No one ever tries to steal the horse.

Or the body parts. Or the body parts. They're always. This is a big TikTok book. Very, very highly recommended. I have so many thoughts about this. But essentially we get the sense that Sella is after her ex-lovers, body parts. We don't know what happened to him necessarily. Obviously, it was very traumatic. And she is

very much in love. And she keeps saying his name over and over and over again so that she remembers him. But she does find one of his body parts in the Civitog Desert. We also get introduced to this person she calls the stranger. We don't know where the stranger came from or how she met the stranger, but the stranger is almost like a guide on this quest that she is on. So we go back in time. All of the gods in this realm. So there's like a god of war, God of death, a God of marriage, all of these gods, right? So her God is the goddess of purity. But her goddess is kind of a bitch. She's a total bitch. She's the goddess of purity, but only because she wants the prettiest maiden's body. And she inhabits these women's bodies until they get old. And then she just inhabits another body. So these women get

presented to her and the prettiest ones get raised in her temple so that when they turn of age, like 21 or something. Yeah, that she can inhabit their body. And at that time, their soul just goes to sleep. It's like body snatchers. They start as children, raise these kids and they isolate them away from everyone, no touching, no hugging, no love, nothing to stay pure for this bitchy goddess who takes over their bodies and uses them however she wants. They're brainwashed into believing that it's an honor. It's an honor. They're serving.

But really, the parents are just pimping out their daughter. Right. Well, and they talk about that. So her dad was a wealthy merchant, let's call him. And he had already had like six or seven children and he hadn't given any to the goddess. So they have Sella specifically to give to the goddess. They got lucky she was hot. Yeah, she was beautiful.

There's meant to be the most purest form. So she can't play. She can't be a child. If she falls down and gets hurt and she's scarred in any way, they wouldn't be willing to take her. She lives a horrific childhood. Until she's like 10 years old, 10 years old is when they give her to the goddess. And so she gets raised in this temple. It's kind of a pampered lifestyle.

It's kind of like living in a spa. Yeah, but lonely. She says no one to talk to. She can't do anything. No one will speak to her because the other thing is that there are other women who get presented to the goddess and they're all meant to be potential vessels. They're like a backup plan. She knows that she is the vessel.

So no one will talk to her. It's horrible. I don't care if you're living in a spa. That's an awful life. Nobody can touch her. She can only eat the purest of things. It's not a life. She just sits in a room and does nothing.

So her goddess is named Renista. This is where we start with the back and forth. Sella is in her, I would call it a prison cell. It's like a lovely room with the life of luxury, but she's essentially a prisoner. And she looks over and someone is in her room, this thief in the night. She's like, who are you? And he's like, I'm here to steal something from you. She's literally been devoid of any contact.

So this random stranger who has snuck into her room from her window, floors high in this castle that she's in. or temple. And she makes friends with him. And he is also an acolyte of a different god, the god, the god of thieves. He is there to steal something. And he tells her, I need to steal something of value so I can be the best thief so he will bless me. And she's like, here, take my robe. It's a white robe with gold thread and he'll know what's really special. And so in the first five minutes of meeting, she gives him this robe. And then they talk and they have this thing. Stealing from Ray Nesta was a really big deal. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Her temple was a fortress and was really well guarded because she's in human form. So she's in more danger than a God that walks around in God form. Stealing from her, that was his inn. And she was like, I'm never going to wear this again. I have tons of clothes. Take this. Right. I think the thing about Renesta, too, is that she was one of the first gods. She's an old god. She's like one of the first.

Yeah. So while she's in this human form and she's very vulnerable, they also all listen to her. They fear her. So all of the gods are, they appreciate or respect her. All the gods are. They appreciate or respect her. All the gods are. They're also always in conflict, too. The god of thievery was really excited to have this. So we learned Cade is his name. This is the love interest who steals her robe. He ends up presenting just the god of thieves and becomes one of his knighted thieves. Yeah, he gets promoted. Yeah, he gets like inducted into the thievery.

And he comes back through the window and he's a thief. So he is cloaked by the knight and he wears these ashes on his face so that he can hide in the shadows. He and Sella end up in this friendship, but she cannot be touched because if she's touched, then she's not pure. But he obviously is attracted to her and she's attracted to him. But he has a scar through his lips and she like yearned to touch it. But she can't touch him. So there's this very interesting kind of like push pull. But he also is like really sad. He's horrified that she will lose her life to a goddess. And he starts to unravel this fiction that they've told her that this is like an honor, that she was. given when she was 10 and he says, did you have a choice? And she's like, of course I did. But then she starts to think, no, maybe I didn't have a choice. For the first time in her life, she's questioning her destiny and what she's been told her whole life is her path. And then she's seeing another option. She's never even had a friend. And now this hot guy keeps sneaking in her window and everything she

has is perfect. She's perfect. And he is imperfect, which makes him perfect for her. For her. And he and he talks to her. He sits down and he actually holds a conversation with her. This is a whole new world. She says, you see me for me and not my beauty or in the fact that I'm given to this goddess. You actually want to be here just to hang out with me. And that was really intoxicating for her. And so he teaches her how to climb up the temple so that she can see the roof and like see the stars and have a little bit of freedom. And so you'll find throughout the book that all of these things that he teaches her along their gear together. is all helping her on her quest to find his body parts, which is very weird. So weird. But he teaches her to climb up the temple walls to the roof. He teaches her to pick locks. He teaches her to sneak through the temple, all of these things as they're getting

closer and closer. But there's obviously an attraction between them, but he won't cross that line because he's trying to respect her choice to be pure for the goddess. As she's starting to say, wait a minute, that's maybe not what I want. That's part of the book. And it's interspersed with her quest to find his body. The next trial that she has is that she has to find his next body part in a frozen tundra where there are white tigers hunting.

And you'll find that every single trial where she has to find a body part of his is in the most awful situation. She gets to this village with her horse and her chest full of body parts. So many issues. So when this all happens. She actually has the torso. She left with the torso. We're not sure exactly how yet.

We don't know the whole scoop. So she starts the quest with a torso. It's like a Mr. Potato Head. Like you have the base. Yeah. Just this bloody torso. I never thought about that. You need the other parts.

She's carrying around with her. That's true. Nobody's noticing the dried blood coming from the box. You know, it's fine. It's a magical box. Pay no attention. It's medieval. Yeah. We don't know why or how, but his body parts are somehow preserved by black magic. So they're all very well preserved, but they have been scattered to the winds and she has to go on this quest. So she gets to this small village and the god Lovac. He was originally a part of this land and he married a woman that he loved. But it was not the political marriage that the god should have done. The city chief had.

a daughter who he wanted the God to marry and the God married someone else. So that chief cursed the land and white tigers killed the wife and their unborn child. So he has disappeared from all of the land. So the city chief uses dark magic to get the tigers. Tigers kill the wife and the baby and the God says, fuck all y'all, I'm out until someone eradicates the evil from this land. And it's been a hundred years. This whole part of the realm has been living in squalor. So she gets there, but this is another weird thing. Her lover's body parts call to her. So, like, her heart knows where they are. And she's to follow her heart to the body part. Well, how else was she going to find him? Right. That's fair. So the stranger who we are introduced to in the desert, the stranger is

along this journey with her. He has promised her if she finds all the body parts, he will help her bring her love back to life. But she doesn't know she should trust him, but he's the hope that she has and she's clinging to, but he talks to her in her mind. And she starts to love him, but like in like a paternal way. And he calls her my child. But the one thing he can't do is help her. Technically. He can give her little tidbits here and there, but he can't touch her.

He can't do anything. He bends the rules a little a couple times. Yeah. For the most part, he sticks by that. He can't quote unquote help her. So anytime he does help her, there's always a loophole, right? Like, I just wanted to hold your hand versus like pull you out of this blinding. heat. I can hold her hand. It's fine. Totally. I helped you escape from death. I didn't help you on your

quest. No big deal. But he's always there in the wings. And she's on this quest for over a year. So he is her only companion. Back to the white tigers. So she's in this very horrific tundra, Siberia type situation. And she realizes she has to go into the God Lovex realm that has basically been abandoned and has not been taken over by these white tigers. So she goes in and she kills some tigers. And she's starts to feel like a little bit invincible. She's always almost dying. The whole book. And she did pry a sword out of a dead body's hands to kill the tigers.

And I thought that was, that was really resourceful. Brave. There's some Tomb Raider shit going on in here. Croft has nothing on this chick. But the minute she kills a tiger or a couple tigers, the god Lovac. The warrior shows up. Ha-da. God of warriors.

She called the first tiger for her husband. husband and she killed the second tiger for Lovac's wife. Yep. And then he showed up and said, hold my beer. Right. Because she was selfish. She was trying to do it for her love and she killed a tiger. And then she said, you know what?

You guys fucked his wife. I'm going to do one for her too. And he does help her. She goes into the temple, which is like the din of all the tigers, which is where the body part is. They help her in like sneaky ways. It's much like the stranger. So Lovac stands in the way so the tigers can't see her shadow so she can get to

the bone and then breaks him free of his purse because she helped him and then he's able to help kill all the tigers. But he blesses her. He puts blood on her face and says I'll always be with you. So now there's a god on her side. She says all the times like these gods have left me and the stranger says not all the gods. And she has to be reminded a lot. She's a little dense when it comes to this. Every single quest she goes on, she encounters the same thing. I know. It's very repetitive in that way. You do kind of start to piece it together. And this quest is ad nauseum. But then you go back to the past.

You fall in love with their love story and how they connect. And there's this scene where he comes in and there's a rainstorm and he's wet. And she's like, come in. No, I'll drip all over the place. They'll know I'm here. We'll leave your clothes outside then. Makes sense. And he's like, okay.

And so he takes off all his clothes and then she takes off her clothes anyway. Butam, but um, they definitely have sex. It is a pretty good sex scene. I will have to say, like I thought it was written. very well. Chapter 44. Yep. It took a while.

I would say the sex scenes were like mid to second half of the book and there was only a few of them and then back to the quest. Were there plural? I only remember one. There were a couple. There was some oral.

There was the first time. There was a wedding night and then there was at the end. So that happens. Then she has to go to a new quest at a lake and the stranger says, I hope you can swim. And she's like, why? And he just pushes her into like an ocean. And she sputters and finally makes it. She's like, you tried to kill me. And he's like, but you didn't die. Thank God.

Because you're going to have to swim for this next quest. It's not a lake or an ocean. It's a sea and a lake. Yeah. It's like this weird valley where the ocean and the lake come together. So it's salty, but it's still got some freshwater in there, but it's really deep. It's the one place that this God owns. That is a big. It's paradise. It's paradise. I thought of it as like a paradise island. Yeah, I was thinking Eden kind of. It's gorgeous, but there's a sunken kingdom. And she has to go to the sunken kingdom to find her lover's next body part.

But she can't hurt any of this god's creatures or he will kill her. She can't even tear seaweed. Yeah, that threw me too. Everything in the ocean is living. If something attacks you, you just have to stay still. Yeah, you can't kill anything. So she ends up getting kind of enamored with these pink fit. She starts following them, but the strangers like, wake up, wake up, but she's following them deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper.

Finally, the seaweed captures her. She struggles and she sees one little seaweed is like floating in front of her face and she realized she tore it from the ground and she gets paralyzed because she's all of a sudden hurt this God's creature. And she basically submits to the ocean and she doesn't come with any weapons or anything. Comes in naked. And the God takes her surrender, gives her oxygen, and helps her get down to the bottom of the ocean where she can get the body part. And then lets her hold it and cuddle this, I think it was a leg. And then helps her get to the top. And at some point she says, can I come back here?

And he ignores her. And then he says, yes. This is the weirdest scene for me. They're all these rainbow pretty fish and they're fluttering in between her fingers. And they're like, ooh, look at me, look at me. And then I see like Nemo. Kappaolo the light. And she's swimming deeper and deeper into the cavern.

And then all of the sudden, these fish morph into these piranha-like creatures. I tried to disnify it. It feels very little mermaid, but like creepy. This was probably my favorite quest. I love, I'm a little of a good snorkel, you know. I've been on snorkeling trips where they're like, don't touch the coral. But you want to, but you can't. I'll ruin it.

Because it's so pretty. I just could really. I love how she had never swam at her life and now she's scuba diving. Like how deep was that? She's a diver. Yeah, far. It's a sunken city. But she's got oxygen bubbles.

Yeah, the fish did help out. She took a really deep breath before she went under. She practiced swimming for weeks. That's a good point. Well, he did throw her into the middle of the ocean, so I hope you survive. That's how you learned. That's how I learned how to swim. You guys didn't get thrown in the water and said, paddle.

I guess I just learned as a child. Anyway, poor thing. So she finally makes it to the beach and has some recovery time. So the next quest is she has to climb a never-ending mountain. No such thing. A never-ending mountain? It's got to end. It felt like a never-ending mountain to her.

So she's climbing up this mountain, the sheer rock face, her hands are bleeding. Like she climbs for days. And finally, the stranger helps her. She falls off the face of a mountain. and basically skewers her thigh on a rock. Yeah, that part was bad. I will say there were some tender moments with her and the stranger, because she kept saying things like,

do you promise you won't leave me? And he would say, I'll never leave you my child. Yeah, I'll never leave you. And so it was really sweet. I felt like it was kind of like Tom Hanks and that volleyball in that one movie. Wilson! Wilson!

He's like so lonely that he just makes her in with the volleyball. Personified, the volleyball, yeah. She wakes up from falling off a, let's call it a 5,000 foot cliff. I like that better. Wow. He is stitching her leg back together. And she says, I thought you couldn't help me. And he says, well, I'm not helping you on your quest.

I'm just helping you not to die. Which apparently is super helpful. So he does save her. That feels fair. And she's like, but where are we? And he's like, on the top of the cliff. He not only saved her, but then deposited her on the top of the mountain. He gave her an express ride.

Made her a fire and, like, you know, gave her some food. And killed a couple of animals in the area. She suffered. I mean, I think she earned the express ride. Well, I'm just saying he's like, I can't help you except for her in these very specific circumstances. Well, and I felt like the climb up was forever. And then the climb down. It's over in two paragraphs.

And I got down. But she's like, it was even worse than going up. And you're like, thank you for a. not putting us through that. Let me go get my horse and my box. Which no one is stolen. And is still in the bottom of the cliff. She's been gone six weeks going up a cliff, but the horse is still there. Fucking good. That's a trusty steed. She does find the next body part on the top of the fucking mountain and climbs down with it and puts it in a box. Three now, right? We've got the torso. We've got a couple legs and arm, I think.

A calf or something? We might be brazen past some questing. Yeah, that's fine. So we're going back in time and there's more of their relationship and more of building of their romance. He's finally kind of convincing her that this isn't what she wanted. She was conscripted into this life. I don't know that he convinced her, but she realized through his love that she wanted more from life. He's like, are you sure this is what you want?

He asked her over and over. And I think he was right to challenge her. Yeah. I think without his prodding, she wouldn't have necessarily come to that conclusion. You're right. He finally says, I can't do this anymore. I'm in love with you. I can't watch you fade away while some selfish goddess uses your body until she's done with it.

I can't watch it. He does say he'll wait for her and then he goes back on it. He says, but I'll wait for you. Totally renegs. I can't keep sitting here and watch. you fade away. Yeah. It's very tragic. I would call it a second act breakup, but you know, he couldn't. But he can't. There's more lovely romance between the two of them, but it is very fraught because of this impending separation because she's about to be body snatched. Well, and also he lives a pretty

dangerous life on the streets. True. As a thief, yeah. He comes back with bruising and he's been in the streets. And he lived a very tough life. And he does admit this, right? Like he was like, a street urchin as a child. He went to steal. He's a bread and he gets caught and he gets saved. And he doesn't know by who. They try to cut his lips off and which is why the scars. But someone saves him. He doesn't realize who. Until he goes to be an acolyte to the god of thieves and realize the god of thieves actually is the one that saved him. So he is very much committed to the god of thieves. Every time he leaves, the security changes where she lives. It gets tighter and tighter and tighter as she's eking closer and closer to this big day.

The harvest. The body snatching day. She starts to wonder, he's gone longer and he's gone longer. And then he shows up randomly. And she's like, oh, I thought you weren't coming back. And he said, no. It just took me that long to figure out how to get to you, but I'm still coming for you. I will always come for you.

It's very romantic in that way. It was so romantic. And she was his only friend he ever had. They were each other's only friend ever. I was like, oh, stop. You're my best friend, my confidant, my love. Is it like love by proximity? Kind of.

Is it real love? Who cares? It's so sweet. Kind of weird. They are each other's person. But he is the thief for hire for the god of thieves. Like he goes out on missions to steal things. He's kind of like it in my six agent.

And in between his missions, like James Bond, he comes back to the woman, you know, to get his 007 off. I got it. So we go back to the next quest. There's a situation where his bones are. are in this layer of this monster. She's crawling through some sort of like Everglade type situation. There's snakes crawling around her ankles. I'll do an ocean any day, but hell no.

And the stranger is like, well, this monster used to be really nice, but then someone tried to kill it, so it killed them, and then it got a taste for blood, and now it's humongous, and it's like bigger than you've ever seen. And so it turns out this is like a dinosaur. It's 70-foot crocodile. That is like here to kill her. The crocodile does find her and chomps on her and drags her into the cave. And she sees across three hills a random sword sticking out of the hill.

Is it random? In a cave. So she does race over to get the sword, drags it out like King Arthur. Yeah. Kills the 70-foot crocodile. Gets the body part. I forget which body part it is at this point. Trudges back through the Everglades.

realizes that the water is so crystal clear and all of these bones are like underneath the water sitting on top of all these jewels because all of these treasure hunters had come to try and steal the treasure and died. Crocodile, yeah. So she's like, while I'm here, you know. The black magic and the bones, it's like a poison. So it like singes her and she's weak. So she's like, I got to find a bag to put the bone in.

And then she's like, well, it's full of gold. So I might as well just take the bag and the gold and put the bone on the. top. So winning. She's like, once I get my husband back, we're going to need some cash. We're going to need some gold. We need some run money. Yeah. That tracks. Listen, she's a thinker. I'm sorry. As soon as I heard about the Everglades, I was like, this is one of those moments where you go, I love you, but. Done, dot. I'm not crawling through snakes. No. White tigers, okay, maybe. Under the ocean. Totally would have done that. Possibly. The desert, the 5,000 mile cliff. Okay. You wouldn't have lost me there. A little hard, but I could do it after a couple of weeks, especially if I knew my

horse was fine at the end. But the snakes, I'm fucking out of here. No, I'm... Fuck, no. Maybe you could just go without your shoulder, but can we bypass one body part? No, he has to have all his body parts for the stranger to put him back together. I mean, I feel like a shoulder you could... That was not a big of a deal. To a tree stump or something. Well, there were a lot of not-the-deals, but they still happened. So she wins. Shocker. Back to the past. Again, we go. We finally get a scene of how we got all the way here. So they admit to each other that they love each other. He says, I don't love you. There's more than that. Like, I have feelings I can't describe. That was their thing. She was, I thought it was cute. I thought it was cute. I loved it. I loved it.

I don't love you. I totally loved it. Because love isn't enough of a word for me. Like, I need a better word. That's so cheesy and so. That's why it's Romian. I fell in love with their, I love their love story. Like I was, I was there for it. I thought it was really sweet. I love that for you. Thank you. You're welcome. I love it for me too. He convinces her. The only way we can be together is we have to escape to break you out of this temple before your 21st birthday so that you don't get body snatched. And I will run away from the god of thieves and we will live a life of poverty. Always looking. over our shoulder. This will be the most horrific life we've ever lived. But we will be together. And she's like, yes, I'm in. And he's like, leave it to me. Like every 20 year old idiot. Yeah. On the road. I can live like no better. You're working. I don't care if you don't have any money. It's beautiful. We'll probably die, but it'll be fine. He disappears for weeks on end and he finally comes back three days before they're meant to escape. She's like, oh, I was so sad that you weren't here,

but I figured you'd be here in three days. And he's like, if we're going to do this, we need to be husband and wife before we do it. I want you to be mine. She's like, I agree. So they climb up the temple to the roof. There's this god of husband and wives. It's two gods that got married and are lovers and became one entity. They do a ceremony on their own asking for the blessing of the god acriol, which is the two and one. They do their vows very similar to what you exactly would think. And all of a sudden, every light in the entire city goes dark. And that gives them the cover of night to... Bam, chicken, wow, wow. Under the stars. On the roof of the temple. Do you guys hear the Aladdin theme a whole new world in your head right now? I can show. There is a good sucks up there.

They're having good time. So then they have to climb down and she says, who knew I would only have 24 hours? And I was like, oh, gosh, we're going to have another fucking, like, quest and no, no. The guards of war bust into the room right after they procreated. Is that the right word? No. They consummated. They consummated.

They also procreated. Well, not you'll later. Yeah. Procrate means you have a baby. She wanted to put their working on it. Here's how it works. During this situation. She was like, wouldn't it be great?

if I got pregnant today. Sadly, she didn't. Anyway, God of war guards, Bustin, she's never been touched by another human except for him. And now you've got guards groping her. He's freaking out. He's apparently very big and very muscular and causing all sorts of chaos. They drag them to the inner sanctum of the goddess of purity, her goddess.

Renezzi? Bichae. The bitchy goddess is there, but the god of war is also there in the inner sanctum, a male. He's also a bitchy. This is unheard of. They basically do a clandestine execution because the vessel has been tainted. So they want to kill tainter. And they've cursed him and say, your soul will be with you forever and you will stay awake throughout the entire execution. She freaks out and he says, if you will not mess with her, I will do this willingly. They're like, don't fight us. It ain't going to be good, but we'll leave her alone. And he is like, deal. I'll take it like a man.

And he did. And he's very brave. And the god of war actually takes pity on him and says, I'll make this as quick as I can. Except he did make sure he had to stay alive through the whole thing. He had already cursed him before the bravery. But he could take it back. Right. Yeah. He couldn't. He's a god. He could have. God's, you know, they got to live up to stuff. So he has this very fancy sword and cuts off his body parts one by one. So an arm. a leg, a thigh, a calf, a head. And all that's left is this torso. The goddess is like, oh, we did this under the cover of darkness. I can't tell my realm that you aren't pure.

I've been waiting for you. That'd be really embarrassing. I'm still going to take over your body and your lover will be scattered to the winds. They're about to do a marshmallow roast. They were going to burn his torso to seal his soul. She couldn't do that. that would have disconnected them. And she dive bombs in to this torso.

Now, remember, this is a big guy. Well, all the guards have left with the body parts. So it's just the two gods and her and the torso. And so she grabs this adult male torso. Well, there's no legs. There's no limbs attached. It's still heavy. It's literally dead weight.

What do you think was attached, though? Just the torso. What about? Was this dick attached? Probably not. She didn't mention it. Yeah. guess so. I would think so. Yeah, because it was just his thigh on each side. So yeah,

his dick all the way up to his neck. But yeah, she grabs that thing and runs like hell. She's been practicing. She's been scaling up temples. She's very fit. He's gotten her very fit. She's not that fit. He's trained her to carry a man's torso and run with it? No. Sorry. It's not like their milk jug training for the marathon. The God of War was like, let's see how far she gets. He was enjoying this. But the bitch god tried to run after her, but she was stuck in a 40-year-old body. Sella was 20. She's like, fuck you, bitch, and she takes off.

And the god of war was like, he-he. He's like, don't tell me what to do, bitch god. Like, I'm not your bitch. And he just watches to see what happens. He was there to do a service, but he wasn't invested, really, in the whole situation. I'm not sure why he was there to begin with. I thought he stole from him. At some point, he took something from him.

Oh. I can't be wrong on that. Is this a kempiracy? Kempiracy. So we learned that this is not the first time they've done this. That is what starts the quests. Fast forward. Her last quest for his head.

That is the last body part that she needs. The stranger leads her to the last place. And it is the God of Wars temple. And he has built his temple basically just to house the head of Kane, her lover. And there's tons of guards around. It's basically impenetrable. She has a bit of a crisis of faith in her stranger that says, you've been leading me down this path. Did you just do it to torment me?

And why am I here? There's no way I'll win this. And I think she kind of hurt his feelings. Right. I've been helping you the whole time. He's like, I would never. He does tell her, you don't have to confront him. Your lover was thief.

Play into that. And she's like, oh. Too bad you can't help me. Yeah. Right. But if you mention it in passing, it's probably not meant for me. She's having a conversation. How loud?

So she says, start me a fire so she can get some ash to put on her face so she can pretend to be an acolyte of the god of thieves. At the beginning, she's like, I don't pray to gods anymore. However. And throughout, she's been slowly kind of like racking up gods who are supportive of her. And now, you know, everything is like, okay, I'll pray to the god of the hunt or okay, I'll pray to the god of the sea. and now she's going to pay to the god of thieves to help her. Because he didn't appreciate the god of war and the bitch god getting together and killing his best thief. He was pissed off about it.

As he should have been. The stranger was like, you know, he may be on your side because of, so he knew something. He may help you a little bit without helping you. Yeah, because it was all under the cover of darkness. They should have told the god of thieves that they had his guy. They should have had a trial. They didn't do anything. I know.

She circles the temple, finds an open window. Her heart is calling her to the next bone. She ends up in the inner sanctum of the God of Wars temple. There's a mural with a picture of someone being beheaded. And she realizes his head is hidden behind this picture. So she finds some ceremonial weapons. It's nice that they're so conveniently located, starts to bang into the wall and says, it. I don't care if anybody hears me. I'm going to get this head. As soon as she gets the head,

she hears knives, like swords. But she also gets really smart and says, you know, I had never seen a god other than my god. Maybe they've never seen a god other than their god. So she pretends to be the god of thieves. And they kind of buy it. I like the balls on this girl. That was quick thinking. At some point, you got to just man up. After a year of this quest, she's got some balls. And it's her the last body part. She's so close. She puts the head in a backpack. She basically gets all the way out of the temple.

It's like she has a fucking travel locker down the street that she just goes and like checks in the body parts. I'll be right back. With her horse, her steed and her trunk of body parts, I don't even know where that is. She's got the head in a backpack, okay? And she gets all the way out to the front of the temple and dodush, the god of war is there. And he's pissed. He's somewhat interested, though. He's sort of like, damn it, I wish I would have known how cool you were. All the gods think she is special, including him, but he's also an asshole.

But he's like, but fuck, like you've now destroyed my temple and you got the head and you've kind of upended me. And so I've got to do something about this. So they tussle. She runs towards the forest, the stranger who's not allowed to help her. opens a portal to another region. There's some sort of shadow that comes out of a forest that somehow saves her. And she ends up a week later, finally awake from all of her wounds. She looks over and Kane, the lover is there ready to be reconfirmed. The stranger is stitching his body parts together. Now, there is a little bit of an issue here, but he did say he might not come out like you remember him. His soul has been separated for over a year and the alligator demon bit one of his body

part. And she's like, I don't care. I don't care. It'll be fine. So he stitches them all back together. He's like right answer. I mean, like, what's the wrong answer? Oh, shit. You could have told me that before I started. Like, will he be a psychopath? Will he be nonverbal? Like, are we talking zombie-esque? Am I going to have to wheel him around on something? I only have one horse. This is true love, people. What am I going to do? So he is so. He is so. back together. He reanimates. He's a little nervous. So weird. I got Tim Burton doll. She's like, do you know who you are? And he's like, yes. And she's like, do you know who I am? He's like, yes, you're my wife. Oh, that part just got me in the fields. I was like he said my wife.

He remembered everything. They were married for like an hour before he was murdered. The stranger still hangs around, like nursing them all back to health. And he finally goes to leave. And she kind of chases him down and says, where are you going? He's like, I don't think I need to be here with this part of the reunion, which I thought was funny. She's like, but who are you? And he's like, I can't believe you to figure it out right now. Me either. He is the god of death. Let's be honest. I figured it out wave. I knew he was a god. I didn't know what God. Oh my God. They've set you up in the beginning saying the only God that just completely disappeared was death. That was like chapter two. I knew he was a God. I didn't know which God. So he was a God of death. And then he told this story about the

bitch god was actually a twin this was juicy it was good and evil and each of the twin daughters were meant to have good and evil in them but bitch god thought she was the coolest of the sisters but the death god fell in love with the sister jealousy story is all this time so bitch god kills the sister and thinks oh if i just kill my sister the death god will love me and he's like no i loved your sister i'm never going to love you and so she banished him and that's why he disappeared. This is like every episode of snapped basically. Yeah. Bitch god and god of war did the whole body chopping with the sister but they burned one of her body part. Burned the torso and

that's why he can bring her back together. Well he did but she wasn't right. She wasn't right. He disappeared because he had no more acolytes. Throughout the whole book they were talking about how the god of death's cult had disappeared and she was like well how can be here and he said, the more you believed in me, the more I could be here. And I think Kane will believe in me too. And that is really all I needed to be a god again. And you will always be mine. And that's why he was so possessive. But you don't feel like that's so dark and twisted that the god of death is with you at all times? It was kind of creepy. Sorry. Well, they made it sound like after he was gone, there was no afterlife. Right. There was no

afterlife. Yeah. And so now that he's back, there's an afterlife. That was kind of important for the people of this story. But I think, too, like there's always a balance between life and death, good and evil, which is what he was saying with the sisters. He is a part of the natural cycle of life. So fast forward, he, I guess is reanimated. She takes him back to Vessie, which is the lake with the sunken city with the pink fish. The paradise.

After a month or so, they finally make love again. And then they don't call it an epilogue. It is. It's an epilogue. So they buy a piece of land with all their gold from her weddings at the crocodile swam. That came in handy. They buy a farm and they have two daughters and they live this beautiful, happy life. The end.

God. Bless. And that is the scattered bones. It was not at all what I expected. I rod dogged it. And I don't know. I have mixed emotions. It was a left turn from what we normally do.

100%. It was kind of fun. It was a round of boot. Let's go with stars, and I'm going to pick on Kim. I knew I was going to go first. Why do you always pick her? Because I always have the facials. She's like, this was the worst.

It wasn't the worst. First I would like to know who picked this book. It was a very highly recommended. It's a book talk. Okay. So, hey, book talk. How's it going? Hi.

Yeah. Kim is not impressed. Kim's like, book talk what? F you a book talk. talk. Second, who read it? Who audibled it? I audibled. I audibled it, actually. I started reading it, but I ran out of time. I could not read it. I 2.0 this shit. When I tried to read it, I could not pay attention. So I also audible. I give it a three. I actually didn't mind this story. This story was cute. It was not our typical story. No. And I think going in, I kept expecting it to have something more.

And instead I was on like a choose your own adventure. Laura Croft Tomb Raider. Raiders of the Lost Art. And a lot of this I actually listen to in traffic. I do not need a quest. I am on a quest. I really struggled with the fact that she needed a vacation locker in every quest beginning because she has torsos and heads.

It was like Jason Bored. She like rolls up to the cliff, pops open an Amazon locker. She's got a key on a little stretchy wristband. It's what it feels like. Solid three. Solid three. Jenny. I gave this book four stars. Oh my God. Really? I did. I will say it did get repetitive with the quests, but I thought it was really well written. I really loved the love story part of it. I loved how they got back together. By sewing up the corpse? That's so romantic. What is it the nightmare before Christmas? Their love story was just so sweet. Sweet. And then the fact that they got back together in the end was just the best.

I mean, listen, book talk, I hear you. I liked it. I'm shocked that you like this book. I really am too. You were shocked. I read the first two pages and was like, this is not going to be for me. And then once I got on Audible, I plowed through it. It was great. It was a fast listen for sure. I'm actually a three. That's low for you. Pretty low for me. I felt like that was really high. Yeah, I almost went down.

That's what she said. There were some redeeming qualities in the book that didn't make it less than a three. Like, the writing was really good. I thought it was very descriptive. I did like the love story, but I did think it was really repetitive. I don't know. All the body parts was just kind of weird. The sewing him up was weird.

So romantic. Why couldn't the god of death just, you know, like throw some dust. I mean, like, boom. It wasn't for me. So spice. I didn't give it a high rating. I didn't feel like it was super spicy. You're going to have to give it something. We're on the edge of our seats. I'll give it a one. I didn't feel like it had a lot of spice to it. They had sex three times. It took us to like chapter 40 before you even got the first scene. I gave this two chili peppers for the same reasons. But it was still romantic. I gave it a one and a half for the exact same reason. Right in the middle of us. Shocker. Weird.

There was not enough of it, but I wanted to be there. There was really good sex scenes where there were some. Thank you guys for listening. I'd send us a message on boozy bookasms.com. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and you do you. Happy reading. Thanks for tuning in. We hope today's episode was the climax of your day, leaving you breathless and wanting more.

Until next time, remember to indulge in the pleasures of life and to keep the passion alive. You can find more tantalizing episodes at boosybookasms.com. Enjoy the ride, and we'll see you soon.