Reading Between Deadlines Podcast

Listen above or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or if you want to SEE us in all our glory… watch at the bottom of this post. And if you LOVE the pod, please consider leaving us a review. This episode's book: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is a bonkers alternate-history mystery where literary detective, Thursday Next, has to save Jane Eyre from a villain who is rewriting literature. A very bookish...

Hi Deadliners We hope you enjoy this latest edition of Reading Between Deadlines. Honestly it might be our FAVOURITE episode yet. It’s a cracker, even if we DO say so ourselves. This episode’s pick: THEO OF GOLDEN by Allen Levi is a book that was self-published and then picked up by a major publisher after it basically went viral. It’s about an old dude who turns up mysteriously in the fiction tow...

Listen above or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or if you want to SEE us in all our glory… watch at the bottom of this post. And if you LOVE the pod, please consider leaving us a review. This episode's book: The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell, is a story about two seemingly very unrelated women as they come to terms with new motherhood, love and hidden family secrets. This week’s gues...

Hi Deadliners We hope you enjoy this latest edition of Reading Between Deadlines. This episode’s pick: HALF HIS AGE - a supposedly funny story about sex, power, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. The story is about Waldo, a teenaged girl who becomes obsessed with her teacher. It’s the debut novel by Jennette McCurdy, child star, now writer, filmmaker and more. Although this is her first...

Listen above or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or if you want to SEE us in all our glory… watch at the bottom of this post. This episode's book: The Only One Left by Riley Sager, a gothic thriller packed with family secrets, dodgy characters, and a creepy old-mansion. The story follows a home health aide caring for a woman accused decades earlier of murdering her family. This week’s guest is Merced...

Hi Deadliners We hope you enjoy this latest edition of Reading Between Deadlines. It’s come to our attention that some of you don’t realise that we still DO post a video but due to something to do with Apple and Spotify we post the audio at the top and the video at the bottom. So if you’d rather watch than listen, scroll to the end of this post. Anthea writes the FUNNIEST timestamps for the show -...

Listen above or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or if you want to SEE us in all our glory… watch at the bottom of this post. This episode's book: The Friend by Sigrid Nunez is a quiet novel about a woman who inherits the dog owned by her best friend when he dies. Not just any breed of dog but a MAMMOTH Great Dane, oh and her rental agreement is NO DOGS. Although a novel about grieving a friend, it a...

A couple of quick announcements from Rach: It’s come to our attention that some of you don’t realise that we still DO post a video but due to something to do with Apple and Spotify we post the audio at the top and the video at the bottom. So if you’d rather watch than listen, scroll to the end of this post. Anthea writes the FUNNIEST timestamps for the show - honestly, we’re not even sure what the...

This episode's book: My Sister, the Serial Killer is the debut thriller novel (although Rach reckons it’s more a novella) by Oyinkan Braithwaite. It was originally published in Nigeria as Thicker Than Water . It received critical acclaim upon publication and was long listed for the 2019 Booker Prize. This week’s guest is multi-genre author, Kayte Nunn, who has the most delightful accent, probably...

Do you get the appeal of Pumpkin Spice? This episode’s pick: The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore exploded onto BookTok a few years ago (yes, we know we’re a little behind the times) with its cozy cover and title vibes. It’s a “grumpy-sunshine” romance set in a small town that people are saying is very like Stars Hollow, the fictional town where hit TV series, The Gilmore Girls is set. In this...

Surprise! We’re dropping a bonus episode to chat about HEATED RIVALRY … because we couldn’t not. If you haven’t heard about this book written by Rachel Reid’s and TV adaptation, where have you been hiding? It’s a rivals-to-lovers hockey romance that’s taken over the world! It’s currently #1 on Booktopia and Amazon AU and so many other places , and when the TV series first landed, Australian publis...

Does CIRCE live up to the hype? This episode's pick: Circe by Madeline Miller is a beautifully written retelling of Greek myth that puts the infamous witch from The Odyssey centre stage. Banished to a lonely island for angering the gods, Circe slowly discovers her own strange, dangerous powers and starts to shape a life on her own terms. Along the way, gods, heroes and mortals drift in and out of...

Dear RBD Listeners January is a busy month for EVERYONE, so we decided instead of discussing a particular book this month, we’d ask each other the questions we usually ask our author guests instead. Enjoy the list of recommendations and non-recommendations mentioned in this ep below. Book that made you cry? Anthea - doesn’t cry in books Rach - Goodnight Beautiful by Dorothy Koomson ; Pack Up the M...

Does A MAN CALLED OVE live up to the hype? This episode's pick: A Man Called Ove follows Ove, a rigid and irritable man whose carefully ordered life is disrupted when new neighbours move in next door. As the story moves between present-day encounters and moments from Ove’s past, we begin to understand the experiences that shaped him, including his sad childhood and one great love. It’s a character...

Does Persuasion stand the test of 208 years? This episode’s pick: Persuasion by none other than Jane Austen , the patron saint of slow-burn and witty banter. We don’t know how many copies it’s sold but if people are still reading our books in a couple of centuries time, we’ll consider that a resounding success. Persuasion - the last novel our dear Jane ever finished - is a quiet story about love t...

Do all crime novel mysteries need to be resolved? This episode's pick: In the Woods by Tana French, the award-winning, Celtic-mist-soaked psychological mystery that launched the Dublin Murder Squad. When a young girl is found murdered at an archaeological dig, detective Rob Ryan is forced back into the very woods where he once vanished as a child, an incident he has no memory of, except for his bl...

Did ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK live up to the hype? This episode’s pick: ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK - a million-copy bestseller, this sweeping novel follows childhood best friends Patch and Saint, torn apart when Patch is abducted. Trapped in darkness, Patch forms an intense connection with a girl he never sees, and when they escape, she vanishes. As Patch spends years searching for her, Saint i...

How would you survive the apocalypse? Would you need a talking pig? This episode's pick: Set in the near future after a devastating pandemic, How High We Go in the Dark follows a series of interconnected characters as humanity tries to rebuild. From a theme park for terminally ill kids to a talking pig and space travel, the stories explore grief, resilience, and what it means to be human when the...

Did Butter live up to the hype? This episode's pick: Butter by Asako Yuzuki is a Japanese literary sensation that’s an unusual blend of murder mystery and food writing. Inspired by a true crime case, it’s about women, food, desire, and manipulation. Did it win us over, or was it all sizzle and no steak (or…butter)? In this episode, we cover: How hype and translation shaped our expectations Food wr...

How far would you go back to save your child? This episode's pick: Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister—a Reese’s Book Club thriller where a mother sees her teenage son commit a murder… only to wake up the next day and realize she’s gone back in time. As each morning takes her further into the past, she pieces together secrets about her son, her husband, and herself. It’s a murder mystery,...

Did Broken Country live up to the hype? This episode's pick: Broken Country by Claire Leslie Hall — a Reese’s Book Club favourite that’s been compared to The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing . It’s got love, loyalty, guilt, and a courtroom drama at its heart… but did it win us over? In this episode, we cover: Why this book caught our attention (and everyone else’s) How hype and word-of-mou...

Jungle fever or just fever dream? This episode's pick: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett—a literary thriller set in the Amazon, complete with pharmaceutical intrigue, moral dilemmas, and one very unfortunate snake encounter. It’s lush, layered, and filled with anacondas, tarantulas, and questionable fertility science. But did it live up to the hype? This week’s guest: Pamela Cook —author, podcaster,...

Is this space book really about space? This episode's pick: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid—a book that is rumoured to have made her an $8 million dollar advance but may have come at the price of her personal privacy. Part space epic, part love story, part unbelievable side characters and strange snacks. We blast off into TJR’s most interesting book yet. In this episode, we cover: Why Atmosphere...

Maeve Binchy’s Evening Class —comfort fiction or structural masterclass? This week, bestselling author Tess Woods joins us to discuss her all-time favourite Maeve Binchy novel: Evening Class . It’s a quiet, sprawling book with no clear protagonist, barely a plot, and somehow...it works. In this episode, we explore: - Why “quiet” doesn’t mean boring - The weirdly satisfying moment when a character...

Can a Name Change Your Fate? This episode's pick: The Names by Florence Knapp—a 2025 debut that’s been dubbed the best in years. It’s a literary “Sliding Doors” novel, but with three parallel lives instead of two. The question at its heart? What happens when a single choice—a baby’s name—changes everything? In this episode, we cover: Why The Names is more craft experiment than comfort read The DV...