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...

Remember those books you read in the summer when you were young? Kids fighting evil in their small town? Bikes, and blood brothers and promises to keep?  If you love those kinda stories then you’re in good company. This ...

Why is Adam Nevill so scary?  I don’t know. Do you? He’s a nice guy – as you’ll hear in this episode. Yet he tells stories that crawl under your skin and stay there. Stories that squat in your subconscious. <...

Part One was epic. Part Two is just as good. In that way, it’s much better than the adaptation of IT! In the second part of this celebration of King short stories, a whole other roster of Constant Readers come along ...

What’s your favourite Stephen King story? Everyone has one. Hot off the back of the recent interview with the man himself, it seemed a neat idea to get a few friends on the show to talk about their own preferences from King’s...

Stephen King is back! What other intro do you need? Okay, fine. He talks to me about the stories behind the stories in his new collection, You Like it Darker. I had the audacity to ask him “where h...

200 episodes! Madness. Who knew there could be so much to say about horror?  I knew. You knew. And here we are. It turns out that the real cursed treasure was the friends we made along the way – and ho...

My unpaid cohost returns. Josh Malerman ladies and gentlemen. Josh has been on the show many times before, but never have I been so excited to speak to him. His latest novel, Incidents Around the House is about as go...

In the second Off Book episode we get out of our armchairs and go on a real adventure. Well, not really – but we talk to two people who do. Danielle and Cassie are the hosts of National Park After Dark – a podcast catering to...