Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Salomé by Leslie Baird, which releases on May 19th 2026.

Don’t open your eyes…

Courtney notices Salomé the moment she steps onto the plane. She’s magnetic, quicksilver, and, best of all for incurable Francophile Courtney, French. So when Salomé invites Courtney to her mother’s town in northwestern France, Courtney doesn’t even have to think about it.

But things are, almost immediately, surreal. Despite feeling right at home with Salomé, Courtney is confronted by a house outfitted with cameras and the dark, watchful presence of Salomé’s mother. Courtney senses she should leave, but with Salomé she feels as if she’s rediscovered the “French Courtney,” an alternate version of herself who made a life in France.

That is, until she starts to experience paralyzing nightmares in which strange voices intone Don’t open your eyes . . . and encounters Salomé’s charismatic stepfather, Marco, whose pyramid-scheme vitamin company offers a tempting segue into an even more insidious group obsessed with eternal life. Or is it an actual cult? And how much does Salomé really know? As a conspiracy unfurls, Courtney is torn between her loyalty to Salomé and what might be the story of a lifetime, the kind that could make a journalist’s career—if it doesn’t kill her first.

A modern reclamation of the original femme fatale whose story, until now, has been almost exclusively told by men, Salomé is a tantalizing, feminist tale exploring power, loyalty, connection, and the measures we’ll take to harness our deepest desires.

EXCERPT

June 19, 2018

In college, I lived in the 18th arrondissement of Paris above a locksmith shop—a serrurerie, which is considered to be the most difficult word for Americans to pronounce in the French language. The verb serrer means to tighten or to squeeze, among other things. Serrure is the lock itself, from the Latin sera: a bolt or crossbar.

The word, for me, took on its own meaning, as words are apt to do. To think of serrurerie placed me so fully in a time and space not exactly in the past or the future, and certainly not the present as I experienced it. Serrurerie became a portal of sorts into an alternative world in which I’d never left Paris. Now I spent most of my time saving up for my next trip back.

Once I’d bought a plane ticket, I ticked the days off on the calendar and wrote serrurerie lovingly in the margins of my notebook, the way people tended to their gardens in anticipation of the harvest. Perhaps that’s how everyone felt about vacations—but I would never consider my trips to France as vacations. They were somewhere between a homecoming and a compulsion satisfied.

As I shuffled down the plane’s center aisle, stopping to wait for other passengers to lift their bags into the overhead bins, my fingers tapped gently against my thigh. S-E-R-R-E-R. My going-to-Paris word. The two Rs, a double tap on the middle finger, naturally.

I found my row, deep in basic economy. There was a woman around my age in the window seat. I lifted my backpack into the overhead compartment before taking my seat next to her. She was looking down at her hands, which were folded neatly in her lap, her thumbs side-by-side. One thumb slid over to the other and smoothed the nail.

Two tears dripped from her chin and onto her thigh. She must’ve felt me looking. Her watery eyes turned to me, but she didn’t seem ashamed, and maybe only partially aware of how obvious it was that she was crying.

“I’m sad,” she said with a small shrug.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I won’t bother you.” I plugged in my headphones and started a podcast before I realized she was still looking at me. I paused the podcast and removed my earbuds.

“I don’t love to fly,” she said. She had an accent. She couldn’t be French, could she? French people weren’t typically as quick as Americans to strike up conversations with strangers.

“Neither do I,” I said. “But I love to travel, so I have to.”

She angled her body toward me. “Same, same.”

“I’m Courtney.”

She slipped her hand, soft and cool, into mine. “Salomé.” Se serrer la main.

I’d always wanted to meet someone named Salomé.

She was prettier than me, but not by a lot. Her hair was dark blonde, parted down the middle and cut into a long bob with curtain bangs. Each time she tucked her bangs behind her ear, they fell right back out, dusting her cheek. It was more the way she moved that gave me the sense that she was beautiful, some sort of sensual lag behind the beat.

There were a number of normal responses for a situation like this: “Oh, what a lovely name,” or even, “I’ve always wanted to meet a Salomé.”

But I said, “You aren’t going to behead me, are you?”

Her mouth fell open.

“I’m sorry, you probably hear that all the time.”

She tilted her head slightly to the side. “No, I don’t. And never before from a young person.”

“I’m a recovering Catholic,” I said. “And I’m not that young.”

She squinted and leaned a little closer. “I think we are the same age.”

“I’m thirty-one.”

“I’m twenty-nine,” she said.

“Well. I’m actually thirty. My birthday is on Sunday. It’s Saint John the Baptist Day, which is why I knew that whole thing about your name.”

“Joyeux anniversaire,” she said.

“Thank you.” I didn’t want the conversation to switch to French, though it was unlikely she expected it to. It wasn’t that my French was rusty. I was afraid to make mistakes.

Salomé lifted the window shade to look down where the airline workers were bustling around the exterior of the plane and immediately closed it again. Somehow, I knew how the next exchange would unfold, though I tried to talk myself out of it at first. I always chose the aisle seat. The window was too claustrophobic, and I could never bring myself to wake a sleeping passenger to slide past to go to the bathroom. But mostly I avoided that seat because in my worst moments of plane anxiety I would imagine the glass bursting open and sucking my body out, where I would still be conscious as I started to fall.

I knew she didn’t want the window seat either. I couldn’t stop myself; I asked, “Would you like to switch seats?”

She raised her eyebrows in pleasant surprise. “Oh, how did you know? Yes, thank you, I don’t like the window. It was the only seat available. I just bought my ticket yesterday.”

I almost had the row to myself. And now I was voluntarily giving up my seat because a pretty young woman seemed to want it. How chivalrous. We awkwardly switched seats. My new seat was still warm where her narrower hips had been. One by one, she handed me my cell phone, hand sanitizer, and bottle of water from the seat back pocket so delicately you’d think she was handling butterflies. I did the same with hers.

The last item was the notebook I’d hoped to use as a journal but that was mostly filled with to-do lists. She ran her fingertips over its embossed cover, swirling gold and green. It was a Christmas gift from my dad, who had gotten the idea years before that I liked Celtic stuff, which was neither true nor untrue.

“Pretty,” she said, before handing it to me.

The flight attendant came by and pressed the overhead bin closed. The engines rumbled to a new frequency. I spelled serrer across my fingers a few times and tried not to hold my breath. If I used the right distractions, it wouldn’t be so bad. I spelled through the flight attendant’s safety spiel, first in English and then in halting French, and through the Delta commercial that played involuntarily on our screens. I got my stopwatch ready as the plane rolled forward and picked up speed, and pressed “start” as soon as the wings caught air. The plane tilted dramatically to the left at twenty-two seconds. I just had to keep my eyes trained on the stopwatch for two more minutes. The Concorde flight 4590 crashed on July 25, 2000, two minutes after taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport. So after two and a half minutes, I would consider myself safe until landing.

You need to meditate. That’s what they all said. Friends, boyfriends, all of them, and every last drop of advice unsolicited. Meditating involved going in there and that’s the last place I ever wanted to be. Imagine it’s snowing. You decide to give in to the whimsical moment and open your mouth to let a snowflake land on your tongue. But instead of a snowflake, an entire battlefield’s worth of bullets rains down on your open mouth and pummels you into the ground. That’s what it felt like to go in there. But it was okay. I’d learned to circumvent the battlefield.

I tried spelling “Salomé” across my fingers, but it didn’t fit well. It had a silvery quality, like water moving beneath the surface of a frozen river. What a beautiful name. Was she named after the biblical Salomé, who’d ordered the head of John the Baptist brought to her on a plate? She obviously understood my reference. The name was too distinct to not be deliberate.

Maybe Salomé was thinking of how my name didn’t suit me. In French, court means “short.” Maybe she could feel my thoughts snaking out like tendrils and filling up the plane. The ones that got close all felt it eventually.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Salomé’ by Leslie Baird appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About The Dorians: Five elderly volunteers on a remote island undergo a high-tech experiment that harnesses an ancient biological agent, pushing the limits of science, human ambition, and sanity. Out May 19th 2026.

Years ago, I did a steroids cycle. I was young(ish), dumb, and obsessive. Not about weightlifting. About writing. And obsession has a way of merrily tripping into masochistic self-abuse if left to run unchecked, as it did in my case: I was in my late-twenties away from home, socially isolated (of my own free choice) with no partner or close friends nearby to say: Hey, Craig, you think you might consider not being a total idiot?

I was working on a novel that would go on to be the first I published under my own name: The Fighter. It would come out years before the Mark Wahlberg film of the same name but would leave an exponentially smaller footprint. In the opinion of my agent at the time, the manuscript “wasn’t working.” This criticism, while correct, was nebulous enough to encourage a host of pathways that I could freely follow in search of a solution.

There were thoughtful, intelligent paths. There were also corrosive and stupid ones. I chose the latter.

If my main character seemed limp on the page, how could I fix that? Well, having him do steroids was certainly an idea. Not a bad one, given the nature of the book. No, the bad idea was to do them alongside my fictional character, casting myself as the George-Plimptonian or Hunter-S-Thompsonian experiential writer.

As I said, I was at that age where such notions seemed very writerly and committed, where at my present age they seem silly.

Let’s skip to the main bullet points, shall we? I did the steroids. They had the general effects that anabolics have on a human body, both good and bad. The novel was made no better from my experience. The book tanked. On went my life.

Yet I’d found the steroid odyssey so bizarre that I sat down and wrote a nonfiction piece about my experience. I sent it blindly to Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, GQ, Details, probably The New Yorker (why?), The Atlantic, Harper’s, Esquire. This was in the olden days of paper submissions, mailed off in manilla envelopes. I’d tried these outlets before, mainly with short stories. It was an eye-of-the-needle moonshot.

Months later, I came home from a shift at the library to a message on my landline. An editor from Esquire had read my steroids piece. It had been plucked from the slush pile (I was given to believe this was a toppling heap of un-agented, unasked-for submissions stashed in some leaky closet in one of the magazine’s subfloors) by an intern. It had gotten passed around desk to desk until it landed on this particular editor’s blotter. He wanted to publish it. And as I needed the money and was clever enough to have taken a few snaps of me jabbing a needle into my ass during my steroids cycle for photographic proof of my idiocy, we agreed to terms.

Some months later the article (with photos of my pale, needle-skewered ass) were published in the hallowed pages of Esquire. The editor and I stayed in touch. I pitched a few ideas, similarly self-abusive (one was that I’d subject myself to humankind’s cardinal fears—arachnids, sharks, claustrophobic spaces, etc.—and report on my experience), but none were picked up. Still, we remained friendly.

A few years later that editor called out of the blue. The baseball player Barry Bonds was in the news. Barry’s trainer Greg Anderson may have slipped Bonds steroids—under the codenames The Cream and The Clear—without the slugger knowing. This led to a lot of side chatter about TRT or Testosterone Replacement Therapy. Seeing as TRT was legal and doctor-approved (well, by some doctors), and since it was basically the equivalent of a physician-monitored steroid cycle, the editor figured I’d be a natural fit to write an article.

Which I was happy to do. But because I have somewhat of a wandering mind, I strayed far afield from the basic pitch outline.

What I found most interesting about TRT wasn’t the steroid angle—that substances outlawed in the Olympics and professional sport had found a foothold amongst 40- and 50-something men who wanted to restore their youthful vigor and sex drive—but the human longevity angle that lurked at the heart of the issue.

The frequent question I asked the patients I interviewed was: What is the main goal of this therapy for you? The most common answer: To help me live a longer, healthier, more robust life. This was echoed by the doctors and researchers I spoke with.

TRT, no matter how effective, is no bulwark against the predations of human aging. Our bodies have a shelf life, as do all mortal things. Animals, fish, trees, everything that endures in some fashion or another on our planet. We come into existence, we grow, experiencing what it is to be alive in whichever ways nature affords our kind, and then, as surely as the sun sets, we all do die.

Yet there were people I spoke to in the course of writing that article who tendered a more extreme and nature-defying possibility.

Why should we have to die at all?

One of these people was a gerontologist by the name of Aubrey de Grey. At the time he was running the SENS Foundation, which was dedicated to life extension and (don’t quote me on this) the elimination of human death.

How? Well, it’s pretty scientifically dense. I’d make a hash trying to explain it. The one idea I recall de Grey extolling (I still have his interview notes; I hunted through my Gmail records to find them.) was that when an organ fails, we replace it with a new one. A lung goes kerflooey, we replace it with a fresh one. A heart, a kidney, a bunch of veins, a brain, etcetera.

We already do this, sort of, via organ transplant. But this is a scenario where we have bio-identically engineered organs—that is, organs grown in vats rather than those harvested from the recently deceased—so hypothetically, a steady supply and in some halcyon future when our organs fail, we get a quickie operation, bad one out good one in, and off we toddle. Our bodies are cars, and doctors are mechanics.

There are many prongs to the SENS Infinite Lifespan Agenda; organ replacement is but one. The overriding objective, however, is to advance the human species to a place where death, once inescapable, can be put off endlessly.

Almost fifteen years since writing that piece, I tried to recall my impression of de Grey. What came to me was: Dude was kind of a jerk. Now that may simply be a case of his blindered passion, his elevated mind, and the fact that he had to defend his work against the objections—scientific, moral, philosophical—of rival researchers and day-tripping so-called journalists such as myself. But in re-reading the transcript of our interview, that sense rebounded on me: Man, what a supercilious, derisive jerk. Perhaps, that’s how you need to be when pursuing work that flies in the face of Mother Nature. Or maybe it was just him.

What I really didn’t care for (and that’s what lurks beneath the Fountain of Youth theme of my new horror novel The Dorians) was the high-handed notion that humans were somehow entitled to eternal life. To me, it seemed wholly unnatural and weird. I did eventually re-read my piece, at least in parts, and came across this paragraph:

I envisioned myself as one of de Grey’s thousand-year-old model humans: My regenerative skin cladding bones drifted with desiccate marrow, second-hand eyes screwed into sockets like blown fuses — a shambling shipwreck straight out of our worst childhood nightmares. De Grey believes that were society to embrace his model, the birth rates could drop astronomically, which paints an even bleaker picture: a bunch of doddering, mothball-smelling millennium-year-olds tottering about in a world cleansed of children’s laughter.

That’s what got me: the selfishness. It’s so pitifully human, isn’t it? If I were to live endlessly—or 1000 or 2000 years—well, that’s me taking up the resources that should otherwise go to downstream generations. I’d be taking their food, water, money, opportunities. Unlike the generations following the Boomers, who (rightly in many cases) blame them for hoarding the homes, jobs, and resources, in this conception the Infinite Generation would prevent ensuing generations from even being born. Childbirth would end. There just wouldn’t be enough to go around if we started living neverendingly.

To hear this possibility tendered by someone like de Grey (himself childless) as the way humankind rightfully ought to exist … it hit me all wrong. It made me sad to realize that too often the selfishness of humankind predominates, and those who can weaponize it stand to profit mightily. The whole conversation (excuse the juvenile phrasing) grossed me out.

It also made me think that, on a philosophical level, an infinite lifespan hammers out so much of our shared human experience. If we exist on an infinite timeline, we lose the value of time itself. Experience becomes repetitive, cyclical, and thus loses consequence or meaning. If we live forever, we forfeit the signposts that signify human life: childhood, teenagehood, young adulthood, adulthood, middle age, old age … now a flat sinewave cleansed of the markers that we assign to those epochs in our lives.

What we may see as heaven—life never-ending—could be like that old episode of the Twilight Zone where the gambling addict arrives at a casino where he can never lose, he only ever wins. What he mistakes at first for heaven is in fact hell.

Would I like to live a healthier life? Surely. Would I wish to live eighty or ninety years in good health, mobile and independent and of sound mind—would I mind it if I was striding down the sidewalk one fine sunny day at ohhhh, let’s say eight-eight years old and fall on my face, stone dead in a heartbeat? I’d be fine with that. With all my affairs in order and most of what it means to have led an interesting human life accomplished. Great, sign me up.

There are researchers working on that objective, too … healthspan rather than lifespan. The goal is to live a normal (dare I say fair) allotment of years in good health. Seventy, eighty, ninety years, without the terminal fall which plagues so many of us toward the end: a dismal carrousel of hospital visits, mobility devices, canned oxygen and machine-assisted living.

If I could avoid that, sure, I would. But knowing those bad days could come provokes me to make the most out of the good and healthy days I have left. I’m aware of the sands slipping through the hourglass. Do I still squander my time sometimes? Sure, but I’m human.

But life everlasting? Nah, I’m not nearly so selfish or egotistical as to believe the world needs an infinitude of me.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Rani Deshpande Takes The Wheel by Arushi Avachat, which releases on May 19th 2026.

Nineteen-year-old Rani Deshpande is on a mission to reinvent herself the summer before transferring to her new university. After a challenging freshman year, Rani can’t help but feel like she’s playing catch up. To that end, she’s crafted a packed summer to get back on track: a dream internship, adventures with her hometown best friend, and regular driving lessons so that she can finally lose her passenger princess reputation – even if it means learning from her aggravating family friend (and childhood crush), Kush Khanna.

Kush and Rani grew up together, but they couldn’t be less alike. Within their close-knit Desi community – a Jane Austen style cast of ridiculous, meddlesome families – Kush is the beloved model son; Rani is more the black sheep. Kush is pre-med; Rani plans to teach elementary school. Kush is cool and collected, bordering on reticent; Rani couldn’t keep her mouth shut if her life depended on it. So when their mothers first force the pair to drive together, the arrangement feels like a recipe for disaster. As the lessons progress, however, Rani discovers there’s more to the boy she’s known her whole life than meets the eye.

In Arushi Avachat’s Rani Deshpande Takes the Wheel, Rani must learn to course-correct, no matter how bumpy or windy the road – and even if it includes a detour right into love.

From Rani Deshpande Takes the Wheel by Arushi Avachat. Copyright © 2026 by the author, and reprinted with permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

Chapter One

My grandfather’s birthday party is always a night to remember.

For the fifth year and counting, we’ve rented the event space at Taj Mahal Express, the sole Indian restaurant in our corner of Seattle suburbia. It’s not the fanciest venue, but we’ve added the Deshpande touch: gold diyas glittering from windows, marigold garlands draped through doorways, and floral centerpieces picked fresh from Baba’s garden. As the eldest grandchild, I’m tonight’s designated party planner, responsible for checking off any last tasks before guests arrive.

Micromanaging Ajoba, of course, is at the top of my list, and admittedly, one of my favorite parts of being home for the summer. I find my grandfather at the open bar, already two mocktails deep.

“Look alive, Ajoba,” I say. He’s dapper in a silver sherwani, and his white hair is cleanly parted at the center, but by his grim expression, you’d never know we were preparing for his own celebration. “We need people to think you want to be here.”

“How will I ever pull off such a lie, my maharani?”

I smile at the nickname. My name is Rani, Marathi for queen, but since I was a girl, Ajoba has affectionately called me his maharani, or his great queen. It’s safe to say my grandfather is who I turn to whenever I need a confidence boost.

“I’m hoping it won’t be a lie.” My voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “Shilpa Aunty has generously offered to perform a solo dance during tonight’s program.” I pause for effect. “And I have agreed to the plan.”

My grandfather meets my gaze for the first time, eyes twinkling with stunned amusement. “Your mother knows?”

I shake my head. “Not yet.” Aai will kill me once she learns, but I want to bring Ajoba some enjoyment where I can tonight.

It’s tradition at these gatherings for a few songs and dances to be performed for the guest of honor. Performers are usually children, but Shilpa Aunty is by far the most attention seeking of the ladies in our family friend circle. She’s been taking Bollywood dance lessons in preparation for her son’s upcoming wedding, and no opportunity to be in the spotlight can possibly be passed up. My grandfather derives most of his entertainment at our functions from Shilpa Aunty’s nonsense.

Ajoba sighs in contentment. “I don’t know how I’ve done without you this last year,” he says, and I laugh, something squeezing in my chest. I don’t know how I’ve done without him, either.

My phone lights up now with a video call from my best friend. “I’m going to take this,” I say, because I’ve been waiting to talk to Simran all day. “You’ll be okay on your own for a bit?” My parents have been absorbed with the caterers, but they’re bound to start pestering Ajoba at any minute.

“Go,” he says. “One day I will finally gather the courage to tell your mother I vastly prefer to celebrate my birthday at the Cheesecake Factory,” he murmurs as I leave.

Aai would have an aneurysm if he ever suggested so, but I don’t have the heart to tell him.

Simran’s calling me back from the airport. She stayed an extra week at Dartmouth after finishing up her finals, so she can’t make tonight’s festivities.

“My flight got pushed two hours,” she says in explanation for missing my morning call. “Never fly Spirit.”

I wrinkle my nose. “I was never planning to.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, I’m just devastated to miss the party,” she says, lips pulling into an exaggerated pout through the screen. She’s wearing the chunky pink headphones I got her for Christmas a couple years back and a gray matching set, the picture of travel comfort.

“I’m sure,” I say, and Simran giggles. She hates these events almost as much as Ajoba. Simran was raised by Cool Brown Parents, second-generation Indian moms who own an art gallery in downtown Seattle. While I spent my childhood being dragged from one family friend’s house to another, Simran attended poetry readings, restaurant openings, the goddamn ballet.

“Kush can keep you company in my absence, no?”

“Was that a threat, Sim?”

She giggles again. Kush Khanna, Noori Aunty’s son, is pretty much the bane of my existence. Polite, handsome, and insufferably overachieving, Kush is beloved by every elder in our community. He’s just a year older, so I’ve been compared to him my entire life, always falling short.

“Bad joke, I take it back, running on very little sleep here.”

“How was the roomie trip?” Simran’s spent the last few days in the mountains near campus with her school friends.

“Magical. You’ve got to come visit me next year. I won’t accept any excuses.”

“It’s in the calendar,” I say, but an odd feeling lurches in my chest, just like every other time Simran has told me about her college escapades. Simran Sinha is my favorite person in the world next to Ajoba, but we had very different freshman year experiences. As thrilled as I am for her, it’s hard not to feel some envy too. I clear my throat, pushing the sensation away. “When do you get home?”

“By morning, granted my flight isn’t delayed again.” She pauses here, dimples deepening. “And then we have the whole summer together. I’ve missed you immensely, Rani.”

“I’ve missed you. This summer is going to be fabulous.” I sound like a High School Musical character, but after the year I’ve had, I can’t overstate how bad I need this win. “Especially, since I have some very exciting news,” I add, finally getting to the purpose of my original call. I pause to let her anticipation swell. “I got my learner’s permit!” Simran’s mouth drops, and I continue. “It’s real, it’s happening, I will be getting my driver’s license very soon!”

“You’re joking,” she accuses.

“Cross my heart.”

It’s been a running joke between the two of us forever that I might die not knowing how to drive. But I stopped by the DOL (Department of Licensing) the day I got back from college. I want this summer to be a true fresh start, a clean slate to set me up for a strong sophomore year, and this is the first step in that direction. Simran has been my chauffeur for years now, so I know this development is a dream come true for her.

“Rani Deshpande, passenger princess no more?” Simran says, all wonderment.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I say. She laughs, and we talk through the rest of our summer plans until Aai calls me over to finish party prep.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Rani Deshpande Takes The Wheel’ by Arushi Avachat appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Hi, Katherine! Could you tell us a bit about the inspiration for this novel?

This book arose out of the way Ed Gein’s murders in the late 50s have gone on to permeate film culture. Gein, among other horrors, was reported to be building a skin suit out of women’s corpses so that he could “become his mother.” The fallout from this is familiar to almost anyone: it was a direct inspiration for Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho and Hitchcock’s film adaptation, for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre‘s house of human-skin lampshades (and the cross-dressing Leatherface), and—naturally—both book and film of The Silence of the Lambs. That a single, obviously ill, person could be responsible for such a legacy struck me as both incredible and sad. It’s unclear what, exactly, Gein’s relationship to his own gender was, but it’s hard not to see him as someone who might, under other circumstances, have been like me. Someone who, in the conservative Midwestern milieu of the 50s, had no idea what to do to feel like a woman besides sew a skin suit out of dead women. And so I wanted to write about such a legacy, and think about the complications of True Crime as a genre and its various legacies (for example, the woman whose story kicked off the Satanic Panic married the man who helped her tell it), and the way these stories reverberate through both culture and family.

All Us Saints is structured like a play, made up of two acts and an intermission, and narrated with a focus on the environment and physical actions. What made you decide to frame the book this way and how does that structure inform the story itself? 

The thing about a play is that you are confined—either as an audience member stuck in your seat, or as an actor who cannot move or turn past a certain point without disappearing and your words getting lost. The very first attempt at writing this book began outside the house, with characters trying to go about their normal lives; it didn’t work at all. The play structure arose out of that feeling of confinement, and a desire to force characters to externalize their worries and their traumas instead of just mulling them over endlessly. The ritual the family does—narrating the night of the murders—arose out of this need: to have characters speak the thing aloud. Beyond that, the children grew up in a theater family, with playwright parents. Having the book structured like a play is a reminder that, though the parents are absent, they continue to shape their children’s lives. It is only in the interstices (the prologue and intermission) that we can get away.

The dramatis personae lists all characters by name except for one—”The Monster”—but we learn they do have a given name in the text. How does this title function for you in the story and what does the word monster mean? 

The initial thing that prompted this was that Michael Meyers, the killer in the Halloween franchise, is credited in the first film simply as “The Shape,” even though his name is said over and over throughout the film. My monster is more human than Halloween’s Shape, but I wanted the dramatis personaeto be just as much a part of the inescapability of the structure as the rest: they are called a monster by the book because the book (like the house, like the family) is a structure with no space for them. But there is power in identifying with the monstrous. Susan Stryker’s “My Words to Victor Frankenstein…” is an important touchstone for all of my work; there she writes: “Monsters, like angels, functioned as messengers and heralds of the extraordinary. They served to announce impending revelation, saying, in effect, ‘Pay attention; something of profound importance is happening.’”

Can you talk a bit about how you got from Still Life to All Us Saints? 

Still Life is, at its core, a book about what happens when you leave; Saints is a book about what happens when you don’t. I’ve seen people talk about Still Life as “autofiction,” a term that it consciously asks to be placed alongside, but it was always also a genre experiment. Apart from my first published story in 2016, I’ve never written anything else that asks to be read as autobiography. Still Life was an attempt to plumb the conventions of the genre and see what I could do with them. AUS is maybe a little less clear in terms of the genres it’s working in—I would call it a gothic novel, but it also has the theatrical elements, and true crime, and other touchstones that will be more misleading if I name them (Columbo, for instance). But at their hearts, both books are about the stories we believe, and how those stories mislead us. They just get at those questions by different means.

All Us Saints is a trans story, and it’s also quite a dark story. Do you think that trans literature has particular responsibilities toward its readers?

A few years ago I wrote an essay about rereading Nevada, and how reading trans lit in 2019 scared me so badly that I half-closeted myself again. I failed to say it there, and I wish I had: it isn’t trans lit’s job to make transition easier. Trans lit has the same job all literature does: to give an honest glimpse of some corner of the world. Half a dozen years past those dark times, I now find it more “affirming” (define that as you will) to read books about gay men torturing each other to death than I will find any book about coming out; eventually you have to stop coming out, and live your life, and answer the question, now what? Trans lit offers some unique possibilities in that regard (thinking, for example, of Anton Solomonik’s story “Cassandra,” in which a trans man and woman cross-dress as their assigned genders at birth) which I think writers should take full advantage of. But otherwise, it’s just a matter of saying, This is how things look from here.

Who is your dream reader for this book, and what questions (or answers!) do you hope they come away with? 

My ideal reader is one who can brook a little discomfort. No one in the book comes out looking particularly good, but I find them all lovable in their own demented ways. I never write toward answers but I do like to play in the space of a few questions. For me, anyway, this novel is about the following: when must people die? how does cisness make the world we live in—not only individually, but geopolitically? And is there a way out?

Will you be picking up All Us Saints? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Katherine Packert Burke, Author of ‘All Us Saints’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Hi, Sam! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

Hiiii, fellow nerds! I’m a very dorky horror novelist, although over the years I’ve tried my hand at many different types of writing. I’ve published picture books, a YA novel (co-authored with my beloved friend Dale Halvorsen), kids’ TV shows, a Marvel story, a bestselling nonfiction book about getting out of debt (the true horror), and I’ve been blogging for almost two decades, although mercifully most of it’s now lost to the ghost plains of MySpace/Blogger/Tumblr. I’ve had many odd jobs over the years, from being Ronald McDonald’s ghostwriter to working in tech, and I now teach creative writing at Bath Spa University. I was born on a farm in South Africa (my first pet was a donkey named Mr Magoo) but I now live in London. I’m obsessed with D&D, spreadsheets, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ve just published my debut adult novel, Femme Feral, which is about a hyper-competent woman who thinks she’s going through perimenopause … but she’s actually becoming a werewolf.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

I was a really weird kid, and I think books were more real to me than people were. My parents were voracious readers, preferring a fun yarn to dry literature, and I was lucky enough to grow up in a house strewn with books. My dad loved cowboy books and adventure stories; while my mum got me hooked on horror from an age that worried librarians. I don’t think I ever started writing so much as I never stopped: I loved making up stories as a kid, and I spent my teen years writing fan fiction, making zines and filling endless notebooks with terribly emo teenage poetry. My best friend and I were so obsessed with Tolkien as teenagers we taught ourselves to write Sindarin. Books have always been the great love of my life.

Quick lightning round! Tell us:

• The first book you ever remember reading: A truly morbid picture book called Poor, Poorly Pig about increasingly terrible disasters happening to a pig, which for some reason I found screamingly funny.
• The one that made you want to become an author: Carrie by Stephen King. I read it when I was about thirteen and felt I’d never read anything so true about the horrors of adolescence. Although, thinking about it, one of the first things I ever wrote was fanfiction of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on my family’s old Packard Bell computer when I was about eight, imagining me and my little brother found a doorway to Narnia behind our local KFC, so maybe that. Honestly, I can’t remember a time in my life I ever didn’t want to write stories, although how one becomes “an author” is something I’m still trying to figure out.
• The one that you can’t stop thinking about: At least once a day I hear a thought in my head that sounds like it was whispered directly from Merricat from Shirley Jackson’s incomparable We Have Always Lived in the Castle. That character lives in the basement of my brain.

Your debut novel, Femme Feral, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Fury, furry, fangs, ferociosity … and I hope funny?

What can readers expect?

• Femmegore catharsis
• Perimenopausal fury
• A skewering of techbros and productivity culture
• Good girls gone feral
• Werewolves, but not the sexy kind!

Where did the inspiration for Femme Feral come from?

About a decade ago I was walking around Cape Town on my way to a friend’s birthday. It was one of those perfect picnic-dress days, a spring-in-your-step song-in-your-heart kind of summer afternoon. Then I realised some dude was following me. I did the things all women do. Reached into my handbag and clutched my keys. Scanned for easy exit routes or an open shop I could dash into. Sped up my walk, but not too much, because you don’t want to over-react or trigger his prey drive. This wasn’t the first time I’d been followed, obviously, but something about this time was different. I wasn’t only afraid, I was furious. I’d been having a lovely day until this creep ruined it! And I found myself having a fantasy I’d never had before: that I could reach into my bag and pull out a gun, turn to him, and make HIM feel afraid.

This was a shock. I’ve never been an angry person. I hate guns and I loathe violence. But this flash of fury has stayed lodged in me like a splinter for a long time. It became the seed for this book: thinking about all the ways women are taught to repress rage our whole lives, and wondering about what happens when we can’t any more.

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

Every good werewolf story needs a Van Helsing character, and mine is a cantankerous octogenarian named Brenda. She has arthritis and macular degeneration, she long ago ran out of the ability to bite her tongue, and she’s perpetually underestimated. She was absolutely my favourite perspective to write from. A lot of the other characters in the story are deeply repressed and obsessed with control. Brenda’s just FURIOUS, and she uses that fury to fight for justice. I love her.

Her story was also partly inspired by one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met, a vigilante who’s devoted her life to catching a serial killer of cats in South London. Real life is way weirder than anything you can imagine.

Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?

One of the hardest things about writing is always what Ira Glass refers to as “the gap”: the gap between the book you want to write and the book you can write. There are so many incredible books out there, and it can be so hard to keep working on something that’s just not as good as you want it to be, because you don’t have the skills of the writers you most admire, and also because writing a book takes so much damn time (for me, anyway).

I know there are some rare writers out there who can write a perfect, beautiful first draft, but I’m not one of them. My first drafts are always a disgusting mess of cliches and cul-de-sac plotlines and underwritten nonsense. The difficult work is ignoring the voice in my brain telling me that I’m just not good enough, this is a huge waste of everyone’s time, I’m a massive fraud, I’m an awful writer, how dare I even think that my stories are worth trying to tell, etc.

What gets me through is just focusing on my love of the craft for its own sake. Being present through the slow process of carving a plot, of pruning a sentence, of sorting your thoughts, of hunting exactly the correct word. There are no guarantees of any outcomes, in this game, so it’s not worth doing unless you can stay in love with the process.

This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?

It’s been a slow crab-walk! I always wanted to write but I had no idea how to pay my bills with it, so I had a series of day jobs throughout my twenties and found ways to keep writing on the side. I blogged, I podcasted, I wrote freelance articles for magazines for almost no money, I played roleplaying games, I was part of a short story club, I met up with friends and write at coffee shops … it was just a hobby, but it’s a hobby I poured my best self into. In my late twenties, I did an MA in Creative Writing, part time, waking up at 5 a.m. to write every day before I went to work. I published a couple of short stories and wrote my first picture book, working with a literacy nonprofit in South Africa called Book Dash. But basically I was pretty happy believing writing would always just be something I did for fun.

Then, plot twist! My family’s financial situation had always been pretty rocky growing up, and as an adult I got myself into bad money trouble and ended up deeply in debt, having to change my phone number every few months to evade debt collectors. I wrote a series of blog posts about how I turned the situation around, and a South African publisher approached me saying they wanted to turn them into a book. That book was successful beyond my wildest dreams, I think because it was funny, and honest, and written from the perspective of someone who’d been terrible with money rather than the normal kind of person who writes money books. That book was a bestseller and was translated and sold in several countries (7? 8?) and it opened doors for me I’d never even dared to hope would open.

I always wanted to write novels but I didn’t think I had the skills, so I tried basically everything else first. I had a lot of fun writing animated kids’ TV shows, since I already have the sense of humour of a six-year-old boy. I collaborated with some buddies on developing some original adult TV shows. I wrote a choose-your-own-adventure climate change game. I wrote other nonfiction books. Then I co-wrote a YA novel with my friend Dale Halvorsen. It was so helpful having someone else to share the load and bounce ideas around with, and it was also just enormous fun (the whole process felt like an extended TTRG campaign). I’d already written a novel when I was about 23, which was truly terrible, but Girls of Little Hope was actually kinda loveable! We published it in 2023.

And I guess, finally, there was nothing else to do except to do the thing I’d always wanted to do: write my own novel. I worked on it for years, and my wonderful agent Oli Munson managed to sell it two years ago, and it is on shelves TOMORROW, and friends, it has been a DAMN LONG ROAD getting here.

I think I’d built up the idea of being an “Author” into this big thing, a thing only the greatest and most special people in the world could be, an unachievable goal. But I love writing. So now I just think of myself as a writer, because it’s more of a verb than a noun. I’m a writer every day that I write. I now have this weird career full of cobbled-together ways of making a living from writing words, and every day I get to do that feels like the luckiest day of my life. I’m going to keep trying to get away with it until someone makes me stop.

What’s next for you?

I’m two drafts into my next horror novel, which is basically Rosemary’s Baby for childfree women. I’ve been thinking a lot about how we’ve simultaneously made the conditions of having kids basically impossible for women, and then pile enormous judgement on them for not having kids (OR for having kids! Basically there’s no way to win!). I’m exploring those ideas through the story of a woman who has no interest in having kids, but finds herself unwillingly responsible for one very strange child.

Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?

Oh man, so many! I’ve always been an omnivorous reader, loving everything from epic fantasy to contemporary litfic to classic sci-fi. My TBR pile is perpetually overflowing but the books that are on the top of it right now are Neena Viel’s I’ll Watch Your Baby (her debut, Listen to Your Sister, was one of my fave horror reads of last year) and Nadia Davids’ Cape Fever, a 1920s colonialism story set in a fictionalised version of Cape Town, which many of my friends have raved to me about.

I’ve read so many bangers this year already! Eliza Clark’s collection of dark shorts She’s Always Hungry was a real highlight. As a huge fan of Ally Wilkes and Dan Simmons I tore through a polar horror that’s coming out later this year: The White North Has Thy Bones by Dorian Ravenscroft. I treasured every careful word of George Saunders’ novel about ghosts and climate change, Vigil (his short story newsletter is one of the best writing Substacks out there). I’ve just started reading Lena Dunham’s Famesick and it’s extraordinary, and I’ve been devouring the Dungeon Crawler Carl series (I’m working on both Carl and Donut cosplay for MCM Comic Con in a few weeks). Once a nerd, forever a nerd.

Will you be picking up Femme Feral? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Sam Beckbessinger, Author of ‘Femme Feral’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Hi, Heather! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

Sure! I’m an Aussie writer living in sunny Palm Springs, California (although really I mostly live inside my own head). I’m drawn to fantastical, whimsical stories about people trying to do right by each other, and love to incorporate magic, mysteries and cute animals into my work.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

Very early on. I’ve always been an avid reader, and was fortunate enough to have a library at the end of my street growing up. Once I realized that being a writer was a real possibility, nothing could stop me! I love storytelling in all formats and have dabbled in everything from children’s books to animation writing.

Quick lightning round! Tell us:

• The first book you ever remember reading: Meg and Mog!
• The one that made you want to become an author: Howl’s Moving Castle
• The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Piranesi

Your novel, Two’s A Charm, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Wicked meets Gilmore Girls (and Daria). Is six words okay?

What can readers expect?

Two’s a Charm is a cosy romantasy about two sisters – bookish librarian Effie and social butterfly and new bar owner Bonnie – who are struggling to come together in the wake of their mother’s death. When their grifter Uncle Oswald offers Bonnie an opportunity to make some quick cash for her business via bespelled drinks, Bonnie leaps at the chance, but soon realises that the drinks are causing some serious side effects. Bonnie and Effie need to set aside their differences (and their pride!) to get things back on track before the whole town is affected.

Where did the inspiration for Two’s A Charm come from?

It came from a “what if” conversation with my editor. What if Wicked were about two witchy sisters? And what if they lived right here in our backyard? The story has several nods to The Wizard of Oz and Wicked, and I had an absolute blast creating the world, the twin arcs of the Chalmers sisters, and the endearing cast of supporting characters. I always feel that magic is all around us, and hopefully readers get that same sense reading this book!

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

I find that themes and motifs really start to surface themselves as you craft subplots and secondary characters, and this was definitely the case in Two’s a Charm. As the story developed, I found myself exploring the idea of all the different ways we can love, the ways that communities come together, the different ways we can have magic, and what it means to be a good friend. In terms of characters, Effie’s best friend Tessa was really fun to write – I could definitely see her leading a story of her own!

Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?

I had a really tight deadline for this one, so I had to be very diligent in how I spent my time and in how I plotted out the story. Word by word, subplot by subplot, I got there! I also wanted to make sure that both Bonnie and Effie felt very different and very flawed – but that we could empathize with their perspectives and the way that they approach love, work, family and community. Secondary characters can really help to balance character flaws by giving you a chance to show a different side of a character – I definitely leaned a lot on the townsfolk and the sisters’ friends to show how kind and loving each sister really is at heart.

What’s next for you?

My second book, Cruel Summerween, comes out in the UK in July 2026, and in the US in July 2027. It’s about chronically indecisive sportswriter Molly, who vacations every year with her family friends in the magical town of Whisperwind Cove. But this year, there’s magic – and romance – in the air, and she finds herself needing to make the biggest decision of her life before the spells she’s been weaving all come crashing down around her.

Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?

I recently read Strange Lights by Mira Gonzalez, which comes out later this year and is a brilliant, wild ride! Highly recommended. Other fab recent reads this year include The Divorcees by Rowan Beaird, For Human Use by Sarah G Pierce, and The September House by Carissa Orlando (I’m late to the party on this one, but it’s great!)

Will you be picking up Two’s A Charm? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Heather Spellman, Author of ‘Two’s A Charm’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Fans won’t have to wait that long for more of Center’s signature romantic tropes, though. This May she’s back with her latest novel The Shippers, a fun romance readers will want to pack for summer vacation alongside their swimsuits and sunscreen.

JoJo Burton is a brilliant mathematician … but her love life has always been anything but logical. Her most recent fiasco takes the cake, though. When JoJo’s estranged childhood bestie Cooper Watts surprises her just as she’s about to walk down the aisle—and convinces her this marriage isn’t meant to be—JoJo leaves her groom at the altar.

Cooper wasn’t wrong in his assessment, but a runaway bride moment is enough to throw any girl’s life into a tailspin. Never fear, though, JoJo’s sister Ashley has a plan to save the day. A therapist in-training, Ashley claims she has finally figured out the root of her sister’s lifelong intimacy issues—and has the perfect solution to end this relationship losing streak. If JoJo can reconnect with her childhood crush (and oh-so-memorable first kiss!), Finn Turner, her love-life curse is sure to be broken.

The plan seems foolproof. Ashley is getting married and Finn, who is recently divorced, will be in attendance. So, the whole crew boards a cruise ship for Ashley’s destination wedding, with elaborate plans for JoJo to reel Finn in and live happily ever after. But when Cooper shows up unexpectedly—again!—and gets roped into being JoJo’s wingman, things become more complicated than anyone is prepared for. Who knew Cooper would look so distractingly hot in a vest? Or that he would fake flirt well enough to not only make Finn jealous, but also get JoJo second-guessing if she’s focusing on the right childhood crush.

Center herself acknowledges in the author’s note for The Shippers that this story will “end well,” so there’s no fear of spoilers here. In fact, that’s part of what romance readers love so much about the genre. It’s the journey to a guaranteed happily-ever-after that makes these stories so fun—and Center handles this journey in an ever-entertaining way.

Part of her magic is pulling together a combination of everyone’s favorite romance tropes. Here you’ll find friends-to-lovers, fake dating, and a G-rated version of the one bed sleeping arrangement that everyone loves. Cooper is also an absolutely swoon-worthy book boyfriend, both caring and protective with a hint of possessiveness. Readers will love the epic adoration and hints of longing he drops along the way,  while silently shouting at Jojo, who remains oblivious to what has been right in front of her the whole time.

This isn’t my favorite Katherine Center book to date, as the plot was drawn out at times, which slowed the build-up a touch more than I would have preferred. Nonetheless, The Shippers is a fun, fast warm-weather read for fans of closed-door romantic comedies. Center has a knack for immediately hooking readers with her characters’ undeniable chemistry, so you’ll have no choice but to keep turning the pages to watch the sparks fly.

The Shippers is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of May 19th 2026.

Will you be picking up The Shippers? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis 

After a lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton vows to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. Armed with pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest). Determined to woo him for closure, she ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, as her wingman. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but showed up anyway. Cooper: who moved to London without a word four years ago. Cooper: who broke her heart.

Shipboard antics abound in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance, as JoJo and Cooper team up, fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, get jealous, answer long-held questions, and finally, at last, discover truths about each other that will change everything.

The post Review: The Shippers by Katherine Center appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Hi, April! Welcome back! How has the past year been since we last spoke for the release of A Simple Twist of Fate?

This past year as been quite the whirlwind (both in writing life and personal life). If I sit down for longer than a few minutes, I’m pretty sure I’ll sleep for a few months straight.

Your latest novel, The Cupid Dilemma, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

There’s a three-headed Cerberus puppy. (But no, really, I’d say: Unhinged in the best way.

What can readers expect?

A grumpy (her)/sunshine (him) fake relationship where the heroine is the daughter of Aphrodite (and a wedding planner) who doesn’t believe in love. When she gets outted and her business starts to suffer, her gorgeous (and annoying) new nextdoor neighbor (a rockstar who DOES believe in love) offers a ‘fauxmance’. There are Coney Island hotdogs, baseball dates, and yes, the heroine has a three-headed dog named Do-Re-Mi.

Where did the inspiration for The Cupid Dilemma come from?

I wanted something different from the witches I’ve previously written and I’ve always been fascinated by the gods. I also knew I wanted a heroine who didn’t believe in love, so naturally that led me to Aphrodite. And then things just went a little haywire from there, lol. But fair warning for lovers of hard core Greek mythology…the gods in The Cupid Dilemma aren’t mean and blood-thirsty.

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

Honestly, I loved writing the scenes with Do-Re-Mi in them, lol.  But I also loved writing any scenes with Addie, her sister, and their cousin. They may all be related, but their relationship goes well beyond and I always try to put a focus on friendships that become family.

With Nix being a rockstar, was there a soundtrack to your writing at all?

You know, I tried to listen to music while writing, but then I always get distracted by singing along so I usually need quiet.

Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?

I did. I’d had some devastating family things happening while writing this book, and at times, I wasn’t sure if I’d actually get it written. The gods knew I wasn’t feeling very rom-commy through it, but the people around me kept pushing me onward and it’s because of them that we’re finally at release day!

What’s the best and worst writing advice you’ve received?

The Best: The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be written. Even now, after 13 books published, I constantly have to remind myself not to get stuck on the little things and just get it written and worry about all the little things later.

As for the worst, I remember someone in the pub industrusty once telling me that I should write to the market (and what’s hot). Yeah, I can’t do that. It took a while, but I eventually realized that I can’t write to the market. I need to write what’s in ME.

What’s next for you?

Other than the upcoming book tour, I have only 2 other really fun appearances scheduled this year. I’ll be focusing another out-of-the-box paranormal rom-com, but will going on submission soon with a super excited project that I cannot wait to shout about.

Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up?

Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed? I read an ARC of Avery Flynn’s Hexy Beast and loved it! And I just picked up Mai Cortland’s Verity Guild on my birthday book haul and am waiting for some beach time to sink into that. There’s been so many good books coming out recently!

Will you be picking up The Cupid Dilemma? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: April Asher, Author of ‘The Cupid Dilemma’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

PLUS you can read the first chapter at the end of the interview!

Hi, Adrienne! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

Hi! I’m an author and mom to one, living and writing in the Northeastern US. My two older sisters and I were raised in Kansas by a single mom, so our household had LOTS of female-forward energy, which informs who I am, how I move through the world, and what I write today.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

I’ve always had a big love of language and words. As a child, this meant entering (and winning!) writing competitions, making up my own lyrics, and besting adults at word games. In school though, writing became an academic pursuit that I didn’t give much thought to beyond a given assignment. It wasn’t until years later, after I had my daughter, that I started playing with words again in the ways I had as a kid—making up poems and songs and rhymes as my daughter and I moved through our days. At that time, I spent a lot of my time dreaming of my daughter’s future—imagining what she could be one day and who she’d become—and I was reading hundreds of picture books. The combination of dreaming freely and being surrounded by books in a way I hadn’t been for much of my adult life, sparked something in me and I started daydreaming about who I still wanted to be and become. That’s when I started putting pen to paper again with my eye on a dream that felt impossible, but still worth chasing…publication!

Quick lightning round! Tell us:

• The first book you ever remember reading: The Giving Tree
• The one that made you want to become an author: The honest answer is probably every picture book at the library and on my daughter’s nursery bookshelf. That phase of life changed everything for me in all the best ways.
• The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The book that’s due to my editors now LOL

Your debut novel, Don’t Tell Me How It Ends, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

How did you get in?

What can readers expect?

Don’t Tell Me How It Ends is an exploration of love in all its many forms—familial love, self love, friendship love, and of course, romantic love. There are themes under each of these umbrellas that inform who our main character, Kaia Harper, is becoming as she moves through her post graduate transitional period, but as a whole, the book is about learning to let people and love in. Even as you move through the mess of life. Learning to trust yourelf and the journey. It’s funny and heartfelt and there’s a guaranteed HEA!

Where did the inspiration for Don’t Tell Me How It Ends come from?

I grew up loving classic romcom movies and rom-drams as well. I wanted to write something with the humor of the former and the layers of the latter.

I’m constantly surrounded by women and examining the universal experiences we all move through. I started playing with this idea that “coming of age” never really ends for any of us—as long as we’re living, we’re learning and growing and reacting to a life we can’t predict. It’s always new. It’s always scary. And it’s always chock-full of potential and opportunity if we’re brave enough to look directly at it.

With those overarching themes in mind, I let my brain play around until these characters started forming and dialogue started materializing!

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

I love writing mess and Kaia is mess. She’s constantly making decisions from a place of fear and self-protection, so it’s no wonder she backs herself into corners and inspires reactions from the people who just want to love her. This conflict was especially fun to write into Kaia’s relationship with her older sister, Zola, because of how central and formative the relationship is for each character.

Generally, I just love writing all the big emotional moments. The reckonings, the declarations, and all the spicy bits, because…come on.

Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?

So many challenges lol.

Practically, I’m a single mom, so time is a big one! Also, have you ever tried to write a spicy scene with someone yelling, “Mom!” from their bedroom, an hour after bedtime?? But moms know, you just get it done anyway, because there’s no other option.

Emotionally, I had to dig really deep to tap into that new love, falling in love feeling, because I worked on this book while going through a tough divorce in real life. I’m grateful to be the type of writer who watches a movie play in their minds, so for a lot of the story, I felt more like a transcriber than the one doing the crafting. My characters led me where we needed to go from a narrative standpoint and witnessing their journeys gave me something to believe in!

This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?

Starting with picture books made for an unusual trajectory. I entered a contest early on with a picture book manuscript and got agent and editor requests through that competition. While I was waiting for their feedback, I switched gears and actually finished my first (unpublished and now shelved) novel. Once that was ready for eyes, I started querying that age category too! Ultimately, I sent the novel to one of the agents who already had my picture book work from the competition and she offered representation on both projects.

In the years since, I’ve been on submission multiple times, sold a few picture books and watched others die, left that first agent and queried again, signed with Melanie Figueroa at Root Literary, written some novels, and now I’ve published a debut picture book and debut novel.

No matter how the story starts, you just keep going. That’s all it is!

What’s next for you?

My next novel, called Better In Real Life, will be out in April 2027. It’s a standalone spinoff where we get to see Zola, the older sister from Don’t Tell Me How It Ends, get her happily ever after. It’s tonally very different from the first book, so I’m really excited for readers to see that progression.

Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?

“I’m rooting for everybody Black.” (in my Issa voice)

• They All Fall in Love at the End by Haili Blassingame explores provocative themes like politics and non monogamy and it’s written by a sharp and exciting new voice. What more could you want?
• The Summer Girlfriend by Kristina Forest is a new book by an author I already love. Kristina does humor and heart like nobody else. I can’t wait to read her take on fake dating with a beachy backdrop!
• These Kindred Hearts is a YA romantasy anthology edited by Shari B. Pennant. It brings authors I already love together with authors I’m excited to read for the first time as they share bite sized love stories that get to play by their own set of fantastical rules.
• I also have the ARC for Die for Me by Shirlene Obuobi ready and waiting and the audiobook for The Exes by Leodora Darlington queued up on my phone right now and I cannot wait to dive into those, because…did I already mention I love mess?!

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Excerpted from Don’t Tell Me How It Ends by Adrienne Thurman Copyright © 2026 by Adrienne Thurman. Excerpted by permission of Dial Press Trade Paperback. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

The post Q&A: Adrienne Thurman, Author of ‘Don’t Tell Me How It Ends’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About Magician: A dark magic debut novel featuring the Boy who becomes the Magician and the villainous Mother whose sadism might end it all—for fans of Our Share of Night and The Changeling. Releases May 19th 2026.

When my mom first inquired as to what my novel was about, in the telling I mentioned a ‘bad mother’ so, of course, the first thing she asked—in a not so pleasant tone—if it was about her. A natural reaction I suppose. Despite her voiced insecurity, she was a fine mom in that 1970s, free range sort of way. She loved my brothers and I, keeping us fed, clothed, and well cared for. She had a love of music and books, a wry, irreverent sense of humor and a delightful creative inclination. Outside of a few well-deserved swats from a wooden spoon, no sort of weird cruelty was imparted.

So, why such an evil mom in my novel, Magician?

Good question.

As mentioned, being raised in the 70s was very hands-off. My brothers and I were left to roam free, stereotypically returning for dinner when the streetlights came on.  As long as we weren’t in our parents’ hair, there was little to no concern about where we were and what we were doing. This parenting style led to us accessing many things way too early in life.

It wasn’t porn on the not-yet-invented internet, but it was books, television, and movies.

Like my mother, I was an avid reader. From a very young age I found a love of books. Our small-town country house that we’d spend our summers in had an unfinished basement where my mom’s stash of hundreds of paperbacks was stored. On too hot, “I’m booored” days when we were banished from the house, I would often head down into its cool, musty embrace and pull any novel that had salacious or interesting cover art and dig in. Let’s just say that a nine-year-old should not be reading Harold Robbins’ “The Lonely Lady” (among others).

Again, the question: Why such an evil mom in my novel, Magician?

In putting together this list, I discovered the answer.

Presented in a foggy order of when I ingested them, here are seven bad mom books I read at impressionable ages that subconsciously contributed DNA to my Magician’s bad Mother.

Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber

“Sybil” released in 1973 was a book I found on one of my mom’s shelves of paperbacks one pre-pubescent summer day. Its cover depicting a sort of ‘mirror shattered’ image of a woman’s face drew me right to it.

The book is an accounting of the psychiatric treatments between Dr. Cornelia Wilbur and a patient referred to under the pseudonym, Sybil. It details horrific matriarchal abuse Sybil endured as a child which caused her to develop a multiple personality disorder. She supposedly had sixteen different personalities ranging from a young French girl, a baby and even two male identities. Its contents mesmerized me. I had never heard of such a thing. To think that a child could be abused so profoundly that her psyche divides to protect itself blew my mind. But by reading the book, and the descriptions of what she endured, it made perfect sense.  

Carrie by Stephen King

I would like to think (or hope) that most everyone has seen the 1976 movie, “Carrie” based on the debut novel by Stephen King. (Or perhaps it’s just my SK fanaticism that leads me to assume this.) Even though I was only eight years old when the movie was released, I know I must have watched it as–having no knowledge of menstruation–I’ll never forget being thoroughly confused by the shower scene.   With the blood, flying tampons and pads along with the teenage girl chants of “Plug it up! Plug it up!” it all felt very puzzling and a bit scary.

The movie’s impact on my juvenile self, eventually led me to pick up the novel hoping to get some insight into why Margaret White, Carrie White’s mother, was so cruel to her. Her abuse going as far as wanting to (spoiler alert!) murder her. The novel drops plenty of traumatic tidbits about Margaret’s childhood that sow the seeds of how she grew into the religious fanatic that would come to regularly lock Carrie in the “prayer closet” to atone for whatever manufactured “sin” she assumed her daughter had made. The disturbing depiction of a mother laying her own issues on the mind and body of her daughter obviously made an impact on my young psyche.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

I have a memory of being taught this book in elementary school. (Any other Gen Xers remember this being taught in school?) A story about an intellectually challenged man who gets experimented on and then becomes super intelligent–just to lose it all again–really messed with my little-kid head.

Charlie Gordon, the man in question, has a mother, Ruth, who refused to accept that she had a son with a disability. She is constantly subjecting him to ‘treatments’ to make him smarter and lashes out at him when he falls short of her intellectual expectations. Her shame at having an imperfect child resulted in continual harsh treatment of her son. When Ruth births Charlie’s younger sister, she names her Norma simply because it resembles the word “normal.”

When Charlie’s intelligence grows and he confronts his mother about how she treated him, instead of vindication, he surprisingly finds something else, and that something was understanding.

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

If anyone of my later-than-middle age generation read this book as a kid, you’ll know that it is quite the doozy! If there were trigger award trophies for books, this one would win them all. However, trigger warnings didn’t exist when I was growing up, so I greedily read this book in all its graphic glory.

This book covers all the bases for bad mothering (and grandmothering!); Abandonment, emotional withdrawal, physical abuse, starvation, isolation, shaming and even poison donuts! A mother hiding her four children in an attic for three years just so she can claim a substantial inheritance is just the tip of the horrendous iceberg.

Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford

“NO WIRE HANGERS!”  Who else can’t forget that iconic line from the 1981 movie adaptation of Mommie Dearest?  Faye Dunaway’s melodramatic performance as Joan Crawford received a lot of controversy. The histrionics and abusive behavior portrayed in the movie were over the top. Once again, seeking the truth and looking for the why, I sought out the book to see for myself. Was Joan Crawford as horrible to her daughter as the movie depicted? Would I get to see more ugly that the screen was forced to hold back?

The book revealed the truth was lying somewhere in the middle. It detailed much of the same abuse, but, of course, it was more amplified in the movie.  The memoir had a more nuanced, layered portrait of the complicated mother and actress, Joan Crawford. It gave a lot of insight into old Hollywood and how one’s public image was everything and how the studios had tight control of their stars.

Seems like some things never change.

A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer

This book was released in 1995 and was on the New York Times bestseller list for several years. At this time in my life, I was a shiny new mother so of course I had to read an autobiographical book detailing the horrific abuse of a mother upon her own son. Makes perfect sense!

Pelzer’s account of how his alcoholic mother physically, mentally, and emotionally abused him from ages four to twelve does not pull any punches.  He details every form of abuse from the standard beating to starvation, to being burned and stabbed. Eventually this monster with the undeserving title of mother does something on another level of cruel, she begins calling him “It” and with that, strips away his very identity and sense of worth.

I was fascinated by how someone who has the prime role of loving and caregiving could treat their own child as less than human.

Push by Sapphire

I read this book after I had watched the movie, “Precious,” so sometime in or after 2009. The twisted-yearn part of me that craved explanation of why and how mothers can be so cruel to their own flesh and blood had me, once again, reach for pages to turn. A place to find the answers.

Push is the debut novel of author, “Sapphire.”  It details the life of a teenager living in New York who is pregnant by her father for the second (!!!) time. The abuse detailed in this novel is overwhelming and disgusting. From childhood, Claireece Precious Jones has only known a life of torture; physical, mental, emotional, and sexual. In her life there are no “safe spaces” but, she eventually finds her way through the help of teachers, education and gaining literacy. In these ways she finally finds her voice.

The post Seven Bad Mom Books appeared first on The Nerd Daily.