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

Following the Mexican War of Independence, Beatriz finds her life in ruins: her father has been executed and she is left to take care of her family. Her only hope is a good marriage–so she marries the wealthy but mysterious Don Rodolpho, following the death of his first wife. Beatriz moves into Rodolpho’s aging home, the Hacienda San Isidro. But that is only the start of Beatriz’s troubles. There’s something supernatural and evil in San Isidro, something that doesn’t want Beatriz there. With the help of the local priest Andres, Beatriz begins a fight for her life. 
Recommended in this episode: Daphne du Maurier's Don't Look Now
UP NEXT: Ania Ahlborn “The Debt“ in Hex Life
Buy Toil and Trouble here!
 

Wednesday Addams is a well-known and much beloved character in the horror genre. We all know her trademark macabre attitude, all-black goth dress with the white collar, and of course, her pigtail braids. Much less is known about Lisa Loring, the first actress to portray the original Wednesday on television. Loring recently passed, so today’s episode is dedicated to her.
Recommended in this episode: YOU on Netflix 
UP NEXT: The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
Buy Toil and Trouble here!
 

When Hilton James’s wife, the only elected African American judge in Dade County, FL, begins receiving racist hate mail threatening her and Hilton and their two children, he understandably becomes obsessed with discovering who the culprit is and protecting his family from them. However, this crisis is not the only one he is facing. After years of feeling that he had moved on from a childhood trauma involving his grandmother, he is once again facing disturbed sleep and weird nightmares, both when he sleeps and while waking. As he negotiates these two monstrous situations, one external and one internal (and possibly supernatural), he faces the terrifying possibility that he could stop the stalker and still lose his family, and maybe even his own sense of self.    
Recommended in this episode: Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Grady Hendrix's How to Sell A Haunted House
UP NEXT: Lisa Loring and the Wednesday Addams legacy and Isabel Cañas's The Hacienda
Buy Toil and Trouble here! 

When Edith Porter’s friend Abby sends her a cutting from a cactus she found while on a trip in Mexico, Edith decides to try to bring it back to life among her collection of cactus plants. To her surprise and delight, it turns green and begins to grow. And grow. And grow. It’s the fastest growing cactus she’s ever seen, and it doesn’t really look exactly like any other cactus, either. As the cactus gets bigger, Edith’s previously sedate life becomes increasingly strange, and although it seems absurd at first, she begins to wonder if the cactus is dangerous. 
Recommended in this episode: A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers and Cassandra Peterson’s Yours Cruelly, Elvira
NEXT EPISODE: The Between by Tananarive Due
Archived version of "The Cactus" can be found here. 
Buy TOIL AND TROUBLE here. 
 

Join Lisa and Mel as they share their favorite books, television shows, and movies from 2022. 
Next Episode: Mildred Johnson’s “The Cactus” (Weird Tales story)
Buy Toil and Trouble wherever you get books!

An unusual episode for an unusual book! 
Helen Oyeyemi’s novel Gingerbread is a tale about a mother Harriet and her daughter Perdita–and Harriet’s famous Gingerbread recipe, which she learned from her mother. Harriet wants to use it to impress the mothers at her daughter’s school. Sounds normal enough, right? Not quite. This is an Oyeyemi book, so of course, things must take a turn of the stranger kind.
Recommended in this episode: Don DeLillo's White Noise (and the Netflix adaptation) and Tananarive Due's The Between
Coming up soon: Mildred Johnson’s “The Cactus” (Weird Tales story) (but a recommendation episode up before that!)
Buy Toil and Trouble wherever you get books!