How else to end 2024 than with an entirely subjective list of the best things I’ve read over the year? How many of you will guess the number one spot? I bet none of you will guess the number two?  Let ...

It’s that time of year again. When I celebrate the winter solstice by getting some horror authors to come and talk in deep, emotional detail about a scary book that we like. This time the Christmas Special Deep Dive kicks the...

… and we’re back! Just in time for this seasonal tradition. The State of the Horror Nation 2024 – our expert-led review of the best that the year had to offer in terms of horror writing and pen-and-ink nightmares. I’m joined,...

This is the last way-back episode before the show returns with a scream next week. But this is an episode worth remembering – my first ever conversation with Catriona Ward, about her game-changing The Last House on Needle...

A chance to revisit one of my favourite books and favourite ever conversations this week. Zakiya Dalila Harris’s The Other Black Girl came out in early 2021, and for once I was ahead of the curve! Right from the star...

I’m feeling Gothic this week. Must be the weather.  In lieu of a new episode, I searched the vault and found this cracker from January 2021, in which Laura Purcell — doyenne of the contemporary British Gothic —  talked me...

This From the Vault episode is not quite so dusty. Gemma and I recorded this in 2022, but it’s more pertinent than ever. One because Gemma’s great uncanny novella The Folly is being reissued this week, and two, because the world is a m...

Still on a break – still releasing episodes “From the Vault.” But this week’s was carefully chosen. In a time of darkness and doom-laden days, laughter is the best thing I can lace your horror with. And thankfully T. Kingfish...

I’m on a break – but couldn’t resist releasing something.  Especially on today of all days, when lovers of democracy require audio sustenance whilst they wait in line to preserve America. 

Halloween has finally arrived. I’m marking it in grim, macabre style. For this Off Book Samhain Special, I’m joined by Kaelyn Moore, host and creator of Heart Starts Pounding – a podcast for the darkly curious, which...

Things are heating up as we approach Halloween. I’m joined by a good friend of Talking Scared – Rachel Harrison – to talk about the hot kind of immortality Her new novel, So Thirsty, does much more...

As we gear up for Halloween, we get all gussied up in Gothic. Del Sandeen joins me to talk about the curses, colorism, and all the many influences in her Southern Gothic debut This Cursed House. It’s a novel that twi...

Things get disinhibited on Talking Scared this week, when CJ Leede joins us for a conversation about her new novel, American Rapture. The novel plunges middle America into a torrid apocalypse, as a sexual pl...

Hold hands, we need to stick together. This week’s episode plunges us into the impossible and endless dark, with Sofia Ajram and her experimental, existential headf*ck of a debut novella, Coup de Grâce. It’s the tale...

I started Off Book so that I could speak to some of the brightest dark stars in the wider universe of horror. This week that plan comes to absolute fruition – ‘cos Kate Siegel is Talking Scared! Yes, Kate S...

Release your inner child!  …I mean through reading, not by letting it burst out of your stomach like some horrible sugar-coated xenomorph. Lora Senf can help. Her Blight Harbor Trilogy is a pi...

More devilish fun on Talking Scared this week when an old friend returns to talk about god, angels, demons and other things out there in the cold reaches of the universe. Johnny Compton is the author of The Spite House

Keith Rosson is our first guest to be personally recommended by Stephen King!  And the praise doesn’t stop there. Keith’s Fever House was one of the biggest hits of 2023, and now he’s back with the sequel, T...

Laird Barron is on the podcast. This feels like cause for celebration.  Not only is Laird Barron a phenomenal writer. Not only is it wonderful that he’s back to writing and talking about writing. Not only am I lucky to b...

Are you a Weenie? Don’t be offended. I am.  Weenies are the curious-but-nervous. Those of us who love horror, but who never feel safe from its power to ruin our sleep (and a week of our life). If that’s you, or if you kn...

Anna Bogutskaya is one of the UK’s most prominent film critics, with a penchant for horror. She knows her scary onions. And in her new book, Feeding the Monster, she asks an important question (well, important to the likes of you and m...

Send in the clowns. Tell them not to forget their crossbows and chainsaws. This week our guest is Adam Cesare, who’s Clown in a Cornfield trilogy reaches a climax (I won’t say end) in Book 3: The Church of Frendo...

Literary or genre fiction? Dumb question. This week’s guest showcases just how dumb! With her debut collection of stories, Mystery Lights showing that horror is literary and literary is horror. These tales o...

This week’s guest on Talking Scared: Off Book scares children. I mean… that’s not his main job or intent (I don’t think) but he does it anyway. Trevor Henderson is the internet’s favourite horror artist. He creates digital ni...

Finally, Gabino Iglesias is on the show.  I tried, and failed, to get him for his break-out Stoker-winning smash, The Devil Takes You Home. Now he’s here to talk about his brand new barrio-noir, House of Bon...