This Valentine’s week, come for a walk up on t’moors with me and Agatha Andrews.

I’ve invited Agatha, my friend and sister-in-Gothic, host of She Wore Black podcast, for a conversation about Wuthering Heights.

It’s known as “the greatest love story ever told,” but that’s such nonsense. Instead we talk about mania and melancholy, hate and power, cannibalism and necrophilia… and we also look ahead to the Hollywood adaptation with bated (but amused) breath.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• David Copperfield (1850), by Charles Dickens
• The Brontës (1994), by Juliet Barker
• The Gabriel Hounds (1964), by Mary Stewart
• East of Eden (1952), by John Steinbeck
• The Vampyre (1819), by John Polidori
• The Favourites (2025), by Layne Fargo

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A bit of chaos on the show for the weekend. We start with one guest and end with two. And there’s a dude with an alligator’s head running amok!

Mama Came Callin’ is the slasher/cryptid/mystery/noir graphic novel written by Ezra Claytan Daniel and illustrated by Camilla Sucre. It’s set in the swamps of Florida, amongst murky waters and dirtier histories.

The three of us (eventually) talk about the horrendous racist truth underpinning the story, we discuss how two creatives can bring their distinctive skills to a singular vision. We hear about the joy and hustle of a multidisciplinary career, and Ezra gives us some insight into the writing room for the TV show Severance.

Enjoy

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We’re tiptoeing towards the sci-fi end of things this week, with Justin C. Key and The Hospital at the End of the World.

This is a techn-othriller about AI run amok in the medical establishment, and the junior doctor who must navigate a shadowy conspiracy, a fatal (and horrific) disease, all whilst making time for class at the sole human-led teaching hospital left in the country.

It’s a lot. And a lot of fun – when it’s not ambushing me with one of my greatest medical phobias!!!

Justin and I talk about the real horrors of his medical school experience, what he’s learned about human connection from his work in psychiatry, and we have that rare thing – a genuinely nuanced conversation about the role of AI in society.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned: 

• The World Wasn’t Ready for You (2023), by Justin C. Key
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000), by Stephen King
• Insomnia (1994), by Stephen King
• Ender’s Game (1985), by Orson Scott Card
• Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming (1994), by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold
• The Curse of Hester Gardens (2026), by Tamika Thompson
• Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024), by Annie Jacobson

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After our loose, freeform chat about the high strangeness of The Talisman, Nat stuck around to Palaver a little more behind Chris’ innocent back.

In this spoiler-filled 35 minutes (do not listen if you haven’t finished The Dark Tower) we get into some firmer connections between King’s magical worlds, we look at the order of books to come, weigh our saddest deaths in King stories…and even after all these hours we’re forced to ask, “what the f*ck is the Talisman anyway?

Enjoy.

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We’re on the road again with our Dark Tower journey, running through adjacent worlds, lighting out for the Territories.

Our latest side-quest takes us to The Talisman, the 1984 epic dark fantasy, co-authored by Stephen King and Peter Straub. It’s a wild, hallucinatory ride, that contains my favourite King character of them all!

Nat, Chris and I talk about that dude, as well as discussing where Jack Sawyer ranks in the league table of King’s childhood heroes. But mostly we try to pin down the connections between this mad story, and Roland’s great quest.

Do we succeed? Do we just make up all manner of wishful thinking nonsense? You decide.

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We're Southbound for monster-loving this week on Talking Scared.

 Georgia writer, Yah Yah Schofield comes to discuss her Southern Gothic debut, On Sundays She Picked Flowers – a story of monsters, spirits, swamps, and generational trauma. There’s a very bad mama and a very haunted house.

Yah Yah and I talk about mother-daughter relationships, the difference between ghosts and haints, the influence of elders, and why the rules are different for Black ‘weird girls.’

Plus, in Yah Yah’s own words – we discuss tongue-kissing monsters.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson
• Haints: American Ghosts, Millennial Passions and Contemporary Gothic Fictions (2011), by Arthur Redding
• The Colour Purple (1982), by Alice Walker
• Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison
• Sula (1978), by Toni Morrison
• In the Dream House: A Memoir (2019), by Carmen Maria Machado
• The Lamb (2025), by Lucy Rose
• We Are Here to Hurt Each Other (2022), by Paula D. Ashe
• Between Two Fires (2012), by Christopher Buehlman

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Imagine you’re back in high school – but worse! The shuffling idiots actually want to EAT you!

That’s the premise of Courtney Summers’ This is Not a Test, her 2012 zombie novel of teen despair amongst the undead, now reissued in a fresh ‘definitive’ version for 2026. When better than a time in which the mindless, greedy and brutal are running amok in the real world.

Courtney and I talk about zombies in 2012 and now, we discuss optimism versus despair, we track the challenges of writing a survival thriller with a suicidal protagonist, and she offers advice on rapid character building and writing teen dialogue.

It’s a good one.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• The Project (2021), by Courtney Summers
• Room To Dream (2018), by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna
• The Stand (1990), by Stephen King

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The year may have started with more real-world horrors from old white dudes, but here on Talking Scared they get their comeuppance – in the form of Kristi DeMeester’s Dark Sisters.

Kristi returns to the show for the first time since 2022, to talk about her novel of religious hypocrisy, patriarchal control and feminine revenge. It’s a three-timeline story of curses through the century and the dark magic that underpins everything.

She tells us about her own childhood in the fundamentalist church, we look back at the cruelty culture of the mid-noughties, and we revel in the wrath of witches with nothing to lose.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• Such a Pretty Smile (2022), by Kristi DeMeester
• Itch (2025), by Gemma Amor
• Gather the Daughters (2017), by Jennie Melamed
• Grey Dog (2024), by Elliot Gish

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No need for a big intro this week. You know what this is about.

The year is over, and it’s time to offer my thoughts on the best books that made it bearable. Here’s my top-10 favourite horror novels of 2025.

I invite comment and debate. The polite kind. Don’t make me set Ted on you.

Enjoy.

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In our sixth Let Us Palaver, Nat and I try to clean things up a bit after the dirty deep dive into Wizard & Glass.

We get spoilery, so this is for Tower Junkie’s only. It will make no sense to anyone else anyway – as we get deep into the metatextual elements of what is to come, who WE think put those red shoes in the road, and we begin to question which books we should read next.

Not a dirty joke in sight.

Enjoy.

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After a summer of diversion and detour, we’re back with the main Ka-Tet for Christmas. What better time for a tale of heartbreak, lost love, and cabin-bound masturbation.

Yes, we’re covering Wizard & Glass.

Some would call this the high point of the Dark Tower series (for me, it’s certainly up there) – and it gives us chance to talk in depth about how Roland became the man is he, and how love made us the men we are!

Yeah… if you’re ready for 2+ hours of middle-aged male nostalgia and dick jokes, this is the episode for you. Thankfully, it also offers literary analysis, Stephen King lore, and the greatest love of all, between a witch and her snake.

Enjoy.

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