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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It: Welcome to Derry has just reached its Season One conclusion and the theories are flying as to where the show will go next.

I have something like an answer for you. Maybe. Perhaps. Cos the creators, Andy and Barbara Muschietti, are on Talking Scared for a conversation about the show, the movies and how they work within King’s story.

They talk about their childhood relationship with the book, how they first came to adapt it, and know that there was more story to tell. We discuss some of the most shocking moments in the season, and they give some very tantalising details about what’s to come, and how deep into the wider, cosmic mythology they are going to delve.

I’ll just say… it sounds EXCITING!

Enjoy

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Welcome to the now sixth annual State of the Horror Nation.

This is the mega-episode, in which I gather a darkly-inclined supergroup of horror fans and commentators—a horror cabinet, if you will—to cast their informed eyes and minds over the year’s best horror.

We talk trends, generation gaps, terrifying moments, and pick what they consider to be their favourite scary books of 2025.

I am just a bystander and the man with the edit button. Bringing the talent and the opinion are Emily Hughes, Anna Dupre and George Dunn. Together they present a tapestry of horror in red and black and other hideous colours.

Suffer your TBR piles.

Enjoy.

Books Picked

Angel Down (2025), by Daniel Kraus

Black Flame (2025), by Gretchen Felker Martin

Futility (2025), Nuzo Ozoh

One Yellow Eye (2025), by Leigh Radford

Play Nice (2025), by Rachel Harrison

Spread Me (2025), by Sarah Gailey

Veil (2025), by Jonathan Janz

When the Wolf Comes Home (2025), by Nat Cassidy

What Hunger (2025), by Catherine Dang

Books Anticipated

Cruelty Free (2026), by Caroline Glenn

Daytide (2026), by Chris Panatier

Femme Feral (2026), by Sam Bessinger

For Human Use (2026), by Sarah G. Pierce

Headlights (2026), by C.J. Leede

Itch (2025), by Gemma Amor

Japanese Gothic (2026), by Kylie Lee Baker

Kiss Slay Replay (2026), by Rachel Harrison

I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours (2026), by Nat Cassidy

Molka (2026), by Monika Kim

Nothing Tastes as Good (2026), by Luke Dumas

Nowhere Burning (2026), by Catriona Ward

On Sunday’s She Picked Flowers (2026), by Yah Yah Schofield

Our Cut of Salt (2026), by Deena Helm

Persona (2026), by Aiofe Josie Clements

The Children (2026), by Melissa Albert

The Curse of Hester Gardens (2026), by Tamika Thompson

The Fourth Wife (2026), by Linda Hamilton

The Hive (2026), by Ronald Malfi

The Last Story of Jamie Gunn (TBC), by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

The Red Sacrament (2026), by Sara Hinkley

Spoiled Milk (2026), by Avery Curran

Trad Wife (2026), by Sarah Langan

Worry Box (2026), by Chris Panatier

Wretch (2026), by Eric LaRocca

Other Books Mentioned

Come Knocking (2025), by Mike Bockoven

Old Soul (2025), by Susan Barker

Rekt (2025), by Alex Gonzalez

The Lamb (2025), by Lucy Rose

The Starving Saints (2025), by Caitlin Starling

Bat Eater, and Other Names for Cora Zeng (2025), by Kylie Lee Baker

Greedy (2026) by Callie Kazumi

The Eyes Are the Best Part (2024), by Monika Kim

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (2025), by Clay McLeod Chapman

The Unworthy (2025), by Augustina Bazterrica

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Emily Hughes Patreon link is here

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It’s all about memory this week.

Remember that time literary superstar Carmen Maria Machado came on the show? No? Well here’s your chance to catch up on what you missed.

Carmen spoke to me about Her Body and Other Parties and In the Dream House – the former a collection of folktale and fable, spun to hideous effect; the latter a piercing fictionalised memoir of abuse and haunted relationships.

This was a daunting interview – we went deep into life, love and all the horrors they can bring. But we came up smiling.

It’s a happy memory.

Enjoy.

The Argonauts (2015), by Maggie Nelson

The Ghost Variations (2021), by Kevin Brockmeier

A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade (2014), by Kevin Brockmeier

Proxies: Essays Near Knowing (2016), by Brian Blanchfield

Monster Portraits (2018), by Sofia Samatar

The Hot Zone (1994), by Richard Preston

The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson

The Bloody Chamber (1979), by Angela Carter

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Jeff VanderMeer and I did not fall out!!

This is a myth that has arisen since Jeff came on the show back in 2021, to discuss his eco-espionage crisis thriller, Hummingbird Salamander.

Well, this trip back to the Vault will hopefully dispel that rumour.

Instead what you’ll hear is a conversation with the Emperor of Weird fiction, talking about conservation and climate catastrophe, about plans to save the world and the villainy of tech – and about the furthest (Southern) reaches of a mad imagination.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer
• Borne (2017), by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Rain Heron (2020), by Robbie Arnaut

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