The Monster She Wrote Podcast Lisa Kroger and Melanie R. Anderson

 We have a bookshop.org shop set up. Now you can shop for all of your favorite horror books by women. You’ll find Lisa's books, Mel’s books, and the books you hear about on this podcast. Plus, bookshop helps small bookstores.
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Mothers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are good, caring, and loving. And some are a bit more complicated. Sometimes it feels like a mother can be out to absolutely destroy your world–the mother at the heart of Gwendolyn Kiste’s story “Your Mother’s Love is an Apocalypse” (from the Mother Knows Best anthology) is of the latter ilk. Kiste explores the difficult mother-daughter relationship and asks the question: when does the responsibility of the daughter to take care of the mother end? 
 
NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses. 
 
Recommended in this episode: Simone St. James’s Murder Road and the anthology Mother Knows Best (which includes the story “Your Mother’s Love is an Apocalypse”) 
 
UP NEXT: Lora Senf’s The Clackity 
 
Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble. 
 

SPOILERS ABOUND! This novel contains a TWIST you don’t want to ruin, so listen at your own risk. 
Vesper Wright left home at eighteen to escape her family, who has been entrenched in a religious cult community for decades, and she hasn’t looked back. That is, until she gets a wedding invitation for her childhood best friend’s marriage to her high school love. She doesn’t know who sent the invitation or if she is even welcome back home, but she finds that curiosity is too overwhelming and decides she has to attend. Whoever said you can’t go home again must not have had such a toxic upbringing…
Recommended in this episode: T. Kingfisher’s What Feasts at Night
UP NEXT:  “Your Mother’s Love is an Apocalypse” by Gwendolyn Kiste (the last story in the anthology MOTHER KNOWS BEST, which includes Lisa Kroger’s own story “Almonds”) Buy the anthology at your favorite local bookstore or online here.
Buy Toil and Trouble here!
 

Tananarive Due’s “Summer” (from her story collection Ghost Summer) is set in her fictional town of Gracetown, Florida, where the humid and murky swamps hide bodies and demon leeches. It’s not a place to raise a baby–or maybe it is. 
Recommended in this episode: Shirley Jackson’s Sundial and Netflix’s Bridgerton
UP NEXT: Rachel Harrison’s Black Sheep
Buy Toil and Trouble here!
 

Sisters Anna and Jennie live in a big house right on the Chicago river, where they are dealing with the grief following the aftermath of a family tragedy and the dead bodies that keep floating to the surface of the water. So join us as we discuss Cynthia Pelayo’s Forgotten Sisters, a novel that is part ghost story, part fairy tale, and part real-life Chicago history. 
Recommended in this episode: Abigail
UP NEXT: Tananarive Due’s “Summer”
 
Buy Toil and Trouble here!
 

Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award® winning and International Latino Book Award winning author and poet. She is the author of Children of Chicago, The Shoemaker’s Magician, Loteria, Santa Muerte, The Missing, and Poems of My Night, all of which have been nominated for International Latino Book Awards. Poems of My Night was also nominated for an Elgin Award. Her collection of poetry, Into the Forest and All the Way Through explores true crime, that of the epidemic of missing and murdered women in the United States. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, a Master of Science in Marketing, a Master of Fine Arts in Writing, and is a Doctoral Candidate in Business Psychology. Cynthia was raised in inner city Chicago, where she lives with her husband and children. 
To learn more about her visit: www.cinapelayo.com and follow her on Instagram @cynthiapelayoauthor and TikTok @cynthiapelayoauthor
 
UP NEXT: We discuss Pelayo’s novel Forgotten Sisters!
Buy Toil and Trouble here!