Summer reading should feel like momentum you can’t shake. We’re German and Jacqui, and we’re bringing a stack of beach reads that are bingeable, a little unhinged, and surprisingly thoughtful, even when they’re dark. If your ideal vacation book is short chapters, high stakes, and characters making questionable choices, you’re in the right place.  We start with what “summer reads” actually means to us, then trade recommendations that hit very different moods. Jacqui breaks down Good Rich People by Eliza Jane Brazier, a sharp, twisted satire about wealth, entitlement, and a tenant who refuses to be a pawn. German brings Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon, a nostalgic coming-of-age novel where childhood magic runs straight into real-world evil, plus a reminder that a long book can still be the perfect companion across slow summer afternoons.  From there, we go darker and more intimate: Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin blends anxiety, identity, and dark humor with a mystery thread, while Whalefall by Daniel Kraus turns grief and guilt into an action-packed survival thriller with an unforgettable premise. Jacqui also shares The Push by Ashley Audrain for readers who love domestic thrillers, unreliable reality, and stories that question the myth of perfect motherhood. And yes, we toss in a bonus horror pick, Maeve Fly, because summer is a great time for glamorous darkness too.  Subscribe for more book recommendations, share this with a friend who needs a new beach read, and leave us a review so more readers can find the show. What’s your go-to summer genre?

Books Discussed in this episode: 

• Good Rich People - Eliza Jane Brazier (2022)
• Boys Life - Robert McCammon (1991)
• Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead -  Emily Austin (2021)
• Whalefall - Daniel Kraus (2023)
• Maeve Fly -  C.J. Leede (2023)

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What makes historical fiction stick isn’t the costumes or the dates. It’s the moment you realize the past isn’t past at all, it’s a mirror. We bring four historical fiction book recommendations that hit that nerve in totally different ways, from eerie hope to full-body dread, and we talk honestly about who each pick is for (and who should check trigger warnings first).

German starts with The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin, a Nazi conspiracy thriller that turns into a sharp debate about nature versus nurture and the terrifying idea that “the conditions” are what create the monster. Jacqui follows with The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, a post Spanish Civil War Barcelona mystery where a hidden library, burned books, and buried secrets turn reading itself into the heartbeat of the story. Then we head to World War I with Angel Down by Daniel Kraus, a brutal, surreal mission into no man’s land that finds a fallen angel and exposes what war strips out of people and what it can’t. Jacqui closes with The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock, a Southern Gothic gut-punch where violence, hypocrisy, and weaponized faith collide in rural America.

We also toss out rapid-fire historical fiction recommendations, share what we’re reading now, and tease our next theme: beach reads and summer reads. If you like an engaging book podcast with memorable picks, subscribe, share this with a reader friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find us.

Books Discussed in this episode:

• The Boys from Brazil - Ira Levin (1976)
• The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón (2009)
• Angel Down - Daniel Kraus (2025)
• The Devil All the Time (2011)

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A haunted house is scary because it breaks the one rule we all rely on: home should feel safe. Time travel is scary for the opposite reason because it tempts us with the one thing we can’t actually have, a redo. We put those two beloved tropes head-to-head and share the books that, for us, do them best, from slow-burn dread to twisty reverse-timeline suspense.<br><br>On the haunted house side, we talk Twelve Nights At Rotter House by J.W. Acker, where a travel writer’s skeptical mindset starts to crack as the house tightens its grip and an old friendship frays in the background. Then we jump to Grady Hendrix’s How To Sell A Haunted House, a wild mix of horror, humor, and grief featuring sibling baggage, a chaotic family home, and a possessed puppet that refuses to be ignored. If you like your horror with heart and a little camp, we get into why this one works and what to watch out for if you hate dolls.<br><br>For time travel, we go emotional first with Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow, a warm and deeply relatable story about waking up at sixteen and getting unexpected time with a parent. Then we shift into psychological thriller territory with Gillian McAllister’s Wrong Place, Wrong Time, where a mother witnesses a murder and wakes up moving backward through the days to find the cause before it’s too late. Along the way, we talk causality, family bonds, and why time travel doesn’t need to be “for sci-fi fans” to hit hard.<br><br>If you love reading recommendations, haunted house novels, time travel books, horror fiction, and smart thrillers with emotional depth, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave us a review. Which trope wins for you: haunted houses or time travel?

Books discussed in this episode: 

• Twelve Nights at Rotterhouse - JW Ocker (2019)
• This Time Tomorrow - Emma Straub (2022)
• How To Sell a Haunted House - Grady Hendrix (2023)
• Wrong Place Wrong Time - Gillian McAllister (2022)

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Your reading year tells on you, the genres you chase, the themes you can’t quit, and the books you secretly wish you hadn’t finished. We’re German and Jacqui, and we’re breaking down our 2025 reading highlights with two very different totals (19 books versus 93), plus the unglamorous truth behind ratings, rereads, and regret.

We start by defining our star rating system in a way you can actually use, from rare five-star “masterpieces” to the occasional zero-star disaster. Then we dig into our top picks and why they hit so hard: Nick Cutter’s The Troop for brutal survival horror and teen paranoia, Phil Fracassi’s Boys in the Valley for demonic infection in a 1905 orphanage, and Nathan Hill’s Wellness for a sprawling, satirical look at modern marriage, misinformation, self-optimization, and the emotional inheritance we drag into adulthood.

We also make a case for classics that convert skeptics, especially Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, a giant Western that’s really an epic character-driven story about friendship, loyalty, humor, and heartbreak. And for readers who like literary horror with atmosphere and psychological pressure, Sophie White’s Where I End brings isolation, obligation, identity, and womanhood into a tense, unsettling spiral. We wrap with more rapid-fire book recommendations, plus the books that disappointed us even when we wanted to love them.

If you’re hunting for the best books of 2025, honest book reviews, horror book recommendations, and character-driven literary fiction that sticks, come read with us. Subscribe, share the show with a reader friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show, then tell us what earned your five stars this year.

Books  Discussed in this episode: 

• The Troop - Nick Cutter (2014)
• Wellness - Nathan Hill (2023)
• Boys in the Valley - Phil Fracassi (2023)
• Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry (1985)
• Where I End - Sophie White (2022)

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Welcome to his book her book, the conversational podcast where a horror obsessed husband and his genre hopping wife try to understand each other’s reading choices, clash tastes and stay happily married through it all. 

Together we’ll dive into stories from opposite ends of the bookshelf, laughing, debating, recommending and occasionally roasting each other’s picks. 

Because in this relationship there’s one guarantee... the only thing scarier than his/my novels is her/my TBR shelf. 

Books discussed in this episode: 

• Dracula - Bram Stoker (1897)
• Prophet Song - Paul Lynch (2023)
• Head Full of Ghosts- Paul Tremblay (2015)
• Nightwatching - Tracy Sierra (2024)
• Our Share of Night - Marianna Enriquez (2019)

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