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Welcome to from the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. Welcome to from the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the south to condition others to like you. That is the challenge of any human encounter. Joyce Carol Oates Fox I'm Annie Jones, owner of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week I'm recommending some of my favorite spoons Spooky Books as you make your TBR for spooky reading season, do you love listening to from the Front Porch? Every week you can spread the word by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. All you have to do is open up the podcast app on your phone. Look for from the Front Porch. Scroll down until you see, Write a review, then tell us what you think. Here's a recent review Feels like a Warm Hug I love this podcast so much. Every time I listen to an episode I end up with a smile and I feel like so much stress has melted away. I don't know if it's the charming Southern hospitality seeping through, but it just feels like a warm hug. It should come with a warning about how much more you'll spend on books, though. Listen, that's our job. We have to do that. My library hold list has doubled and visits to my local indie bookstore has become a weekly habit. This thrills me because one of I hope the unspoken perhaps spoken but one of the unspoken missions or purposes of from the Front Porch is to help you fall in love with your indie bookstore. And if you don't have one, we hope we become yours. We really do. There are a lot of places in this country that don't have indie bookstores, and so if you don't have one, we hope that the Bookshelf feels like yours. But if you do have one, we hope that we've inspired you to visit to buy books when you can to support your local library instead when you can't. And so this just makes me really happy. Thanks for visiting your local indie wherever you live. Thank you to all of the reviewers who've left kind words and thoughtful reviews for our show. We are grateful anytime you share from the Front Porch with your friends. Thanks for spreading the word about our podcast and our bookstore. Now back to the show. Sometimes you just want a good book. Listen, we know this here at the Bookshelf because customers come in the store or email Erin all the time asking for recommendations based on a specific genre or criteria. A bookseller's favorite task at least in my personal experience is to go around the shop and put together a stack of books for a customer who's on the hunt. Even if the customer doesn't buy every book we pick, the fun is in the discovery. And honestly, when I'm creating these book stacks in the store, I really, my goal is that the customer would walk away with at least one. So if I give them, I'm about to give you a stack of five. I'm gonna give you a list of five. If one book works for you, then I'll have done my job really well. If all five work for you, even better. But if one works, that feels like, oh, I found it. I found a treasure for you. So that vibe, that spirit, that idea is what we're trying to mimic on these episodes of from the Front Porch. Every so often, I will put together a book stack around a certain theme so you can listen to past episodes like this episode 4634-734814-98504, 511, and 516. We've linked all those in the show notes. If you're maybe a new listener and you want to go back, we're talking. We've done rom coms, we've done autumnal reads. I'll mention those particular ones in a second. We're going. We have done book club recommendations, audiobooks. We've really tried to kind of run the gamut in terms of what we're recommending. So anyway, this month our theme is in honor of Spooky Season, I've created a short list of some of my favorite thrillers, mysteries even, maybe some horror adjacent books. Even though horror is kind of outside my typical genre. And just like I would not overwhelm an in store customer with a towering stack of titles, I don't want to overwhelm you either. I want to give you five books I think you'd love. Whether you're a regular reader of spooky lit or you're simply trying to read seasonally this October. And like I mentioned, if you're looking for even more recommendations, episodes 446 and 498 from the last couple of years talk about spooky books. I think in episode 446, I'm joined by Keila and Olivia. So if you want to hear some other staffer recommendations. And then last year, episode 498, I talked, yes, about spooky books, but also just about autumnal reads. And then. And stay tuned because next week's episode is a literary Therapy episode. And boy, do I have some autumnal picks for you. So many books that aren't just spooky, but are autumnal in nature. So those are some past episodes and future episodes you can listen to. Get some fall books for your book list. All right, so let's get started. The first book I'm gonna recommend, released in paperback in July. It was a hardback book, a new frontless title last year, I.e. granite harbor by Peter Nichol. This did not get the praise that I felt like it mostly deserved. Now I say mostly because I did have some issues with the ending of this book. And then Olivia is always and listen, now that she has told me this, I can't unsee it. So really I blame Olivia. But Olivia has talked to me before about bad detective work, shoddy detective work. I'm not revealing anything you don't, I think, already know about Olivia, but she's an Enneagram one and so she is very quick to notice when someone is not doing their job. And so she prefers, and I do too, detective stories or detective novels where the detective is really good at what they do. Granite harbor is not that book. Now, I actually think, upon reflection. So this book released last year. So when I was prepping for this episode I thought to myself, wait a minute, what if Peter Nichols is making a point here? Because the main character is a writer turned detective named Alex and this is his first murder case. So Alex's detective skills in my mind are pretty terrible. But isn't that the point? And maybe that is the genius of Peter Nichols, which is that this is a writer who thought he could become a detective and this is his first murder case in small town Maine. So the book setting is super realistic and atmospheric. The characters are well drawn and convincing. Perhaps the exception being Alex, but I really liked this one. It reminded me of the Mid coast, which is a good summer comparison. I think you could read the Mid coast at any time, but if you like me, try to read books in their season, which I don't always do, but I like to do. The Mid coast feels summery and then Granite harbor feels autumnal. Last year I think I recommended this for fans of Tana French only. This is American and again, Alex isn't as great at his job, but it is a good thriller suspense novel. It's got a. It's got a very dark serial killer element to it. So this is not light and frothy, which is part of the reason I do like the Tana French comp. This is not a fun Thriller. This is a darker, dealing with kind of the worst parts of humanity thriller. And it is relatively. Do we use the term open door and closed door for non romance novels? This is. I would never use the word gory, but like one scene still sticks out in my brain, which is pretty unusual for me. I made a note last year that I thought this was a perfect plane book. So if you've got a fall trip coming up, this would be fun to put in your bag because you could read it very quickly over a plane ride. So that is Granite harbor by Peter Nichols. And the good news for you is it is a paperback. So it's now in paperback. The paperback came out this July, also in paperback and also releasing this July, but totally different is Everyone Is Lying to youo. This is by Jo Piazza. You might be familiar with her from her podcast, whose name, which name I cannot recall. You can Google it, but you can Google that. So this book came out earlier this summer. I liked it a lot. There was another summer thriller, I think I've mentioned it in passing on a couple of episodes called Happy Wife that I preferred in terms of summer reading. But I think Everyone Is Lying to you is good autumnal reading. It's a satisfactory thriller about an influencer and her long lost college best friend. I don't know what we should call this, but we're talking like I frequently really like a book that's single white female type of thing, meaning a little bit stalkery, a little bit stalker, a little bit obsessive. I'm thinking of Social Creature. And then actually Tara Isabella Burton does this really well. So she wrote Social Creature and she wrote the World Cannot Give, both of which deal with like this dynamic where one woman is obsessed with another. And so in this book we've got the college best friend who has become obsessed with her like trad wife, influencer, college bff. But they've lost touch over the years. This influencer's trad wife life does not make sense to this college best friend. I thought this was really timely and funny, kind of darkly comedic. I certainly think there's a way in which this book exists alongside the Devil Wears Prada. If that book had been a thriller. I also think somebody is inevitably going to turn this into a film or more likely a six part Netflix series. I laughed out loud, like chuckled a lot at this book. The pace is great and the protagonist's observations about social media and influencer culture, not just in and of themselves, because that was interesting enough, like kind of giving getting some insight into the influencer world. That was interesting. But how it was really interesting was to compare the main character, the college best friend. She's a magazine journalist and she's watching as her best friend from college who had no interest in journalism, no interest in that industry is really like I had never thought about this before and I don't know why, why I hadn't, but how the influencer, the modern influencer is, is what the magazine journalist used to be. So I'll give you an example. When I was in high school, I was subscribed to Lucky magazine. Did anybody else subscribe to that? It was a shopping magazine. Like it was a magazine about shopping and trends and I loved it. I was not a fashionable teenager, but I loved that kind of stuff. Ate it up with a spoon. I watched, oh, you know, Stacy London and Clinton, what not to Wear. I watched what not to Wear, which I think maybe getting a reboot here pretty soon but with a twist, you know, a 2025 twist. Eventually Pinterest existed and so you didn't need Lucky magazine anymore. Influencers exist so you don't need Lucky magazine. And I had not thought about that. I just thought print was dead. But I didn't necessarily think about the why in terms of how influencers, I know they have changed news, but to think about how they've also changed something seemingly silly like shopping and trends was fascinating to me. So kudos to Joe Piazza for covering some in my mind unmind territory this summer. I did not finish but I started watching the movie or the T show the Hunting Wives which was based on that book that came out a couple years ago. If you like the Hunting Wives, I think you will like everyone is lying to you. I actually liked this book better and so it's a great trad wife murder mystery. Again, one woman is obsessed with another. Think social creature. Enjoyable. Enjoyable. Weirdly, bear with me. But I think because of the pie on the COVID I'm like oh, great Thanksgiving book. So if you're going to your in laws for Thanksgiving weekend, here you go. Take Everyone is lying to you by Joe Piazza. It's out. Hey, this is Annie and I'm taking a quick break from this episode to tell you about Discover Thomasville. Gracefully tucked within the storied red hills of South Georgia, Thomasville curates a distinguished downtown experience that meanders along several blocks of our iconic red brick streets. Here, bespoke boutiques, master craftsmen, coveted antique art purveyors and celebrated culinary artisans converge in harmony with the cultural richness of the pebble Hill Plantation Art Tour and the tranquil allure of Birdsong Nature Center. Here you discover the soul of the South. Here you discover Thomasville. Learn more by visiting thomasvillega.com News hey friends, it's Annie. If you're looking for another bookish show to add to your listening cue, check out the Webby Award winning daily podcast Totally Booked with Zibby. It's hosted by my fellow independent bookstore owner Zibby Owens, who's been dubbed New York City's most powerful bookfluencer by Vulture. Every weekday on Totally Booked, she sits down with the best and buzziest authors to share work that's truly worth your time. And that's not all. Season two of Totally Booked Live is here. This time around, you're invited to be part of the live studio audience in New York for 16 incredible interviews with stars like Danny Shapiro and Susan Orlean. Every conversation will be released on the podcast feed after, so don't miss out. Follow Totally Booked with Zibby wherever you're listening now. Paperback okay, you are gonna have to pre order this one, but it only it's only gonna take a couple of weeks, so it will why publishers do this I don't know, but this book does not come out until November 4. It is called Strangers in the Car by CM Ewan. It is already out in the UK so there are workarounds, especially if you're an international listener. Go look for this one. This is one of those thrillers that to me will hold your attention in the moment, even maybe if it's not ultimately super memorable. And I think that's okay. One of my goals when I make a book list like this is to have something for everybody. And so is it a cozy mystery? Is it a serial killer book? Is it true crime? Is it nonfiction? Is it a novella? The next book I'm recommending is a novella. So I try to even though that these books are all in the same overarching drama, I try to pick different types of books. So Strangers in the Car is a straight thriller to me and it hooks you from page one. It's extremely fast paced, the chapters are really short. I think Olivia would like this one. This does I don't do a ton of trigger warnings. This does deal a lot with infertility, miscarriage and so you may want to go into it knowing those things. But basically you have a married couple in the car. They are driving home late one foggy night and they spot a disabled vehicle on the side of the road. A husband, wife and baby are stranded there, desperate for a ride to the hospital, so the couple offers to drive them there. Of course, things don't go exactly as planned, and the late night unfolds far differently than to be expected. There is a new book coming out. Gosh, did it release this month. It's called the Hitchhikers. The premises sound very similar, except the Hitchhikers was blurbed by Stephen King and it was set in the summer of 76, so that one may be worth trying too. But I was trying to stick with autumnal, and because of the foggy I'm making a shivering we don't record the video of these, but I'm making a shivering pose because of the foggy nature of it all. This did feel very autumnal. I read it this summer and I wished I had read it in the fall. It's very well paced, believable. It just only fell flat to me at the very end. The writing may be not quite like your Gillian Flynn or your Liz Moore, but that's not what this is claiming to be. This isn't a literary thriller. This is just page turning. Someone in the Attic. That kind of book. If you liked Someone in the Attic last year, I think you'll like Strangers in the Car. I finished this one so fast. So fast. So that is Strangers in the car by CM Ewan. It releases November 4th. 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I mean, you could download the audiobook and probably knock it out in a couple hours. You could read the novella in. Oh Honestly, no time at all. So it's a horror novella, it's a modern folk tale, it's a dark fantasy. So I remember my friend Juliana really liked this book. She is way more comfortable with world building and fantasy than I am. I don't think Olivia read this one, but I do think there's some Annie Olivia overlap here. Basically, Pjeli Clark has imagined a world in which the Ku Klux Klan members are actually pointy headed demons who live and work alongside human members of the clan to accomplish evil. So this one is set because it's fantasy? It's hard to say, but it felt like it was set in a past time, perhaps when the Ku Klux Klan was at its peak. But it's imagining them as literally like pointy headed demons, which I thought was so brilliant. And then standing in the way of those demons is Maurice Boudreau. And then she's got some resistance fighters, a foul mouth sharpshooter, and a Harlem hellfighter. The three of them are really spunky, almost like Charlie's Angels type figures. And they hunt the hunters, trying to send the clan's demons back to hell. This takes place in and around Macon, Georgia. Spunky female protagonist, short and smart. For fans of Oyinkan Braithwaite, this is about race, race, human dignity. I really liked this book when it came out in 2020. It has a very striking cover that I think folks who might not know what it's about might be kind of startled by it on the shelf. But the artwork is beautifully rendered to depict kind of what is happening in the book. I really liked this one. Again, a slight horror element, which I don't. I'm not always drawn to, and certainly I'm not naturally maybe drawn to a book about demon hunters, but I really liked this one. This is probably an Annie Keela overlap as well. If you're a Keela reader and I wanted to mention it in case you missed it, you'll hear, I think maybe you already heard on an episode. I was scrolling back through my Instagram account and I was looking for a book and I made it to 2020. Y'. All. Have you ever just stopped to pause about what the last five years have held? I mean, I'm assuming you all feel the way I do, which is probably a big assumption to make, but I just assume we're all a little tired. And so, yeah, a lot has happened since 2020 and there are some books that I think did not get their due because of when they released, and this is one of them. Where I feel like if this came out now, it would make even more of an impact and create more waves than it did in 2020, when most of us, most of our bookstores were closed and not open to the public. And anyway, if you haven't read it, try Ring Shout by P. Jelly Clark. Okay. And then last but not least, I would stick on top of this stack the paperback original, your favorite scary movie by Ashley Cullens. You've already heard me recommend this one on from the front porch, but I felt like including a nonfiction pop culture book on this stack. If you are a fan of the Scream franchise, and honestly, even if you've only seen the first one, there are parts of this that will really appeal to you. The audiobook is great as well. If you prefer listening to an audiobook. It's narrated by Roger Jackson, who is the Ghostface character in Scream. This released this year. It's a paperback, fast read. And the reason I'm recommending it now is because I wish I'd read it in October. So I want you to get to read it in October and then plan a party or plan a movie marathon where you watch, I don't know, scream 1, 2 and 3, or at least scream 1 and 2, or you watch Scream 5, because Jack Quaid. But I think that this was a very fun look at those books and a look, honestly, at the director, Wes Craven. There is a brief mention, maybe it could have been more, I don't know. But there is some mention of the Weinstein of it all. Because Harvey Weinstein and his brother. Right, Bob. Bob Weinstein. The Scream movies were really under his purview. But the movies, especially those first three, I want to say, were part of Miramax. So there's a little bit of that discussion as well. All of the major players are interviewed. Ashley Collins is a journalist, and you can tell she took this seriously. Yeah, I really liked it. And there's going to be a new Scream movie out in 2026. So I think this one is worth listening to or reading. I think you'd fly through it if you read it. So that is your favorite scary movie by Ashley Cullens. Okay, so that is our book stack today. If you came in today and you were like, hey, I'm looking for a spooky book. I'm looking for a mystery. I'm looking for a thriller. I would give you Granite harbor by Peter Nichols. Everyone Is Lying to youo by Joe Piazza, Strangers in the Car. That's definitely the most typical, like, kind of traditional thriller. That's by CM Ewan, Ring Shout by Pjelly Clark, and your favorite, scary Movie by Ashley Collins. Now I'm gonna talk about this book. I want to talk to you about Fox by Joyce Carol Oates. Because truly, Fox, in my mind, belongs on this list. It is the literary thriller of the year. So if you're a God of the woods fan, I think you should read Fox. However, so many triggers, so many content warnings. This is just so very dark. And so I have been hesitant because I've not known who could I sell this to. If you are not familiar, this is also kind of sort of a campus book, loosely. So this is a book about a teacher and the students that he preys upon. He is a pedophile. He is an abuser, and he grooms his young students, his very, very young students. I read this. You're gonna think I lost my marbles, but I read this right after our son was born. Hunter. I had seen it, and my publisher rep had told me when he sold this to me, he said, this book is excellent, but it is so dark. And he had said. He was like, I'm not sure who you're gonna sell it to. And I appreciated that honesty, and I was very intrigued. But honestly, I've never read Joyce Carol Oates. And so I kind of thought, well, I'll just wait and see what kind of buzz this makes. And Hunter read it, and I think gave it five stars. And so I had a copy, or maybe even I made Jordan go get me a copy. I read the physical format of this one. What I do need you to know is I. I read it and thought it was excellent. The writing is stellar. The storytelling is brutal. I did want it out of my house after I finished reading it because I felt like it was very dark. I also kind of think it's required reading for parents so that you can see the types of people who prey on the innocent, because I feel like it is a very realistic portrayal of grooming and predatory behavior. It is also. I mean, it could potentially sit on a shelf with the Rebecca Mackay book. What is that book called? I've got questions for you. And the reason is because there is a mystery at the heart of the book. I don't know that I would file it, you know, in the mystery shelves, but there is a mystery at the heart of it. And, oh, my gosh, the payoff is great. The payoff is worth it. I think it's brilliantly handled. I have a friend who I would consider her, maybe would I consider her a sensitive reader. Anyway, she did not have a problem with the content. She did not think it was quite as dark as I did. And so maybe my view is coming from having just had a kid. But there's no denying it is dark and it is not for sensitive readers. Like, I would never put this in my mom's hands, but if you can handle it, the writing is great. The story is compelling. It is a page turner. It is thick. When Jordan brought it home for me, I was like, oh, I don't know. This feels. This feels like a dumb move. Postpartum, it wasn't. Will it be in my top 10 of the year? I don't know. But it is very memorable. It's very memorable. If a customer came into the store, I'd at least try selling them this one. I don't know if I'd succeed, but I'd try. So that is Fox by Joyce Carol Oates, and I felt like it was worth a mention, though not included in maybe the original stack okay, you can find all of Today's books@bookshelfthomasville.com, today's episode number is 550. Can you believe it? 550. We should have balloons or something. Lots of episodes of from the Front Porch. This is episode 550. You can type the episode into the search bar and Erin will have all of today's books listed there for you this week. What I Am Reading is brought to you by Discover Thomasville. Gracefully tucked within the storied red hills of South Georgia, Thomasville curates a distinguished downtown experience that meanders along several blocks of our iconic red brick streets. Here you discover the soul of the South. Here you discover Thomasville. Learn more by visiting thomasvillega.com News I would be remiss if I did these ads and did not talk to you about Thomasville Onstage and Company. TOSAC is our local theater company. They have existed for decades and they put on wonderful stage productions in our small downtown theater. If you have attended a From the Front Porch Live event, we have occasionally held them at this theater. This fall they are doing a production of Our Town and our very own Aaron Fielding is going to appear in that production, which is part of the reason I wanted to give it a plug. So tickets are available now. You can find a link in the show notes to the TOSEC website where you can purchase your tickets and you can see Aaron in the production of Our Town. If you read Tom Lake if you have read the play Our Town, then I hope you will consider making a trip to Thomasville. I think this would be a great thing to make your way down here for Fall is a fun time to visit and getting to see this stage production is sure to be special. This week I'm listening to the Running man by Stephen King. Thank you again to our sponsor, Discover Thomasville. Here you discover the soul of the south, here you discover Thomasville. Learn more by visiting thomasvillega.com News from the front Porch is a weekly podcast production of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow the Bookshelf's daily happenings on Instagram, Bookshelf TVille and all the books from today's episode can be purchased online through our store website bookshelf thomasville.com a full transcript of today's podcast episode can be found at from the frontporchpodcast.com Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of from the Front Porch and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations. Our executive producers of today's episode are Cami Tidwell, Jamie Treadwell, Linda Lee Jones, Jean Queens Martha Stephanie Dean Beth Ashley Farrell, Amanda Wickham, Nicole Marcy Wendy Jenkins. Thank you all for your support of from the Front Porch. If you'd like to support from the Front Porch, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the show even better and helps us reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the podcast podcast app on your phone, look for from the Front Porch, scroll down until you see, write a review and tell us what you think. Or if you're so inclined to support us. Over on Patreon, where we have three levels of support, each level has an amazing number of benefits like bonus content, access to live events, discounts and giveaways. Just go to patreon.com from the frontporch we're so grateful for you and we look forward to meeting back here next week.