The Worst Bestsellers

  As Americans, it’s our right to not pay attention to the British royal family. However, we’re waiving that right in order to read Spare by Prince Harry. We were thrilled to be joined by Dame Sophie of Two Bossy Dames –even more thrilled than Harry was to meet Will Arnett at a party at Courtney Cox’s house. Listen to this episode on your way to throw more tea into Bos...

Divorced, beheaded, subjected to an extremely long and boring work of historical fiction. Ann Foster from Vulgar History joined us to discuss The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory . We were glad for Ann’s expertise, because now we now that it’s historically inaccurate in addition to being super boring. Listen to this episode on your way to your next gay witchcraft circle! Readers a...

Did you read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and think, “This could really use more victim blaming?” If so: have we got a book for you! Kristen and Jolenta from How To Be Fine (and By the Book) joined us to discuss Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever: The Making of a Happy Woman by Judge Judy Sheindlin . Listen to this episode on your way to pick up your husband’s dry cleaning!...

We got tired of waiting for Stephenie Meyer’s latest book, so we checked out a book that some book bloggers are saying Stephenie Meyer wrote. Corinne is written by Rebecca Morrow , whose author bio simply states, “Rebecca Morrow is a pseudonym for a  New York Times  bestselling author.” We had our friend Margaret H. Willison (of Two Bossy Dames , among other projects) join us to...

Dear Ellen, our friend Vanessa from the podcast Hot and Bothered flew in from Plethora, Maine to discuss Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us . Millions of BookTokkers can’t be wrong…can they? Listen to this episode in Boston, where everything is better. Content warning:  Domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual assault, death of a child. Readers advisory :  Here . Footnotes: “Bests...

Although we had to check out of the real life Inn BoonsBoro, we were able to return there through the power of fiction. We read the second book in the Inn BoonsBoro trilogy, The Last Boyfriend by Nora Roberts , with our returning guest and Nora Roberts expert Christine . Readers advisory :  Here . Footnotes:  Inn BoonsBoro Coming up next:  It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover .

  Thanks to our wonderful Patreon Patrons, we recently traveled to Nora Roberts’ bed and breakfast in Maryland, Inn BoonsBoro, along with our Resident Nora Roberts Expert, Christine, and Resident Robe Expert, Nicole! Please enjoy this bonus episode where the four of us talk about our luxurious weekend stay, debate the content of a dolphin massage, and fail to accurately describe the siz...

It’s our first episode of the year and we’re already longing to get away from it all. So we were joined by Heidi and Emily of the Romancing the Shelf podcast to discuss the book The Next Always by Nora Roberts . But also more importantly, we discussed Inn BoonsBoro, the B&B where this book is set, but also the B&B that Nora Roberts owns in real life! Heidi and Emily gave Kait a...

Another year has come and gone, and yet we’re still here, talking about books! For a treat, here are some good ones. Footnotes:  Boston Globe’s Best Books of 2022 (featuring Renata’s picks for middle grade and YA!) Coming up next:  A January hiatus. Happy New Year! We’ll see you in February! Kait’s Top 5 Best 5. Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert 4. Experimental Film by Gem...

Democracy works: our Patreon patrons voted for us to read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert , so we did. And we, along with our returning guest Meredith Goldstein , of the Boston Globe’s Love Letters ,  actually kinda…loved it? Sorry haters, we’ve been Gilbertpilled. Listen to this episode while eating incredible homemade pasta, or just some frozen pizza if you’re currentl...

Duarte’s been asking us for more feline representation, so we were joined by Phillip Mottaz , author of the Psychic Barber Mystery series , to read the first Mrs. Murphy mystery, Wish You Were Here  by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown. It’s a small town cozy mystery solved by a postmistress and her pets. Unfortunately, the pets have weirdly regressive attitudes. Turn the volume up o...

  We reunited with Sydney and Delaney from Book Cult to discuss the cult-adjacent teachings of Sylvia Browne, as presented in her book Blessings From The Other Side: Wisdom and Comfort From the Afterlife For This Life . Play this one extra loud to make sure that it’s audible to the spirits hovering three feet above you! Readers advisory :  Here . Footnotes:  Book Cult Episode 43: Blessi...

With Saturation Day (and spooky season!) upon us, Kait retreated to her queers-only bunker with returning guests Wren and Laura to discuss Chuck Tingle’s horror novella Straight .  Listen to see what happens when three type-A planners read a book about the type of people who don’t google the menu before going to a new restaurant. Readers advisory :  Here . Footnotes: Nightfire Proves L...

We got tired of reading reality TV memoirs, so instead we read a thinly-veiled reality television novel, L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad . Some of us (Renata) enjoyed it more than others of us (Kait), but we were both thrilled to talk to Helena Greer ( @BlumAgainCurios ), the author of Season of Love and the upcoming For Never And Always. Readers advisory :  Here . Candy pairing: Helena says Sour Patc...

It’s our 8th anniversary, and Stephenie Meyer has rudely not written anything new for us to read, so instead we decided to take a page from Diana Gabaldon and time travel through our past. We recorded this supersized Origin Stories episode where we answer listener questions, talk about the history of our friendship and our podcast, and only cry a little bit! Thanks for listening to us for 8!...

  We were so thrilled to be joined by Bobby Finger , cohost of the Who? Weekly podcast and author of the upcoming book The Old Place ! We read How To Be A Boss Bitch by Christine Quinn , the star of Netflix’s Selling Sunset and confirmed Diva Boss Bitch. This book gave Bobby a chance to share his considerable reality television expertise with us, while we summoned all the knowledge of p...

We are once again returning to the rosy world of The Bachelor with our special guest  Rebecca Kim Wells  ( @RebeccaWriting ), Bachelor fan and the author of  Shatter The Sky , Storm The Earth ,  and Briar Girls . This time we had the good sense to read Miss Me With That by Rachel Lindsay , a woman who found love on reality television and then was smart enough to walk away from the franchise. Reade...

  Our sweet Flashback Summer is finally over and we’ve reluctantly returned to the world of modern publishing. Dee Ernst , author of Lucy Checks In , joined us to discuss the certified #BookTok sensation, The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. We’ll unpack this Star Wars fanfiction turned fake dating romance novel, google Adam Driver’s height, and lament the lack of porgs. Li...

  It’s our 200th episode! Which means we have read approximately 200 books, and therefore we deserve a break. Walt , the professional DM from First Time at the Table (and husband to past podcast guest Annie Cardi), led a delightful Dungeons & Dragons adventure set in the magical world of Duartensia. Kait played as The Rock, Renata played as Wolverine, and past guest Danielle  (of  H...

When we asked Chris Collision (cohost of I Don’t Even Own A Television ) for his Flashback Summer choice of childhood favorite book, he surprised us with a title we’d never heard of before. And then Diane Duane surprised us with The Door Into Fire , a delightfully queer fantasy novel that was so great, we couldn’t believe we hadn’t heard of it before! Listen to this episode...

  Happy Fourth of July! Buy Westing Paper Products! Flashback Summer continues with a book that’s such a stone-cold classic, we strongly advise that you not listen to this episode if you haven’t read The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin . Our guest, J.W. Friedman from the I Don’t Even Own a Television podcast , joined us to discuss this iconic mystery that won the 1979 Newbery M...

  The day has arrived: Renata read her very first Goosebump novel. Courtney Summers , Best Bestselling author of books like The Project and the upcoming I’m The Girl , joined us to discuss Night of the Living Dummy by R. L. Stine . Please rate this episode 10/10 Splats in the Apple Podcasts store. Readers advisory :  Here . Footnotes: Episode #54 – R. L. Stine Episode #152 –...

As the earth makes another journey around the sun (allegedly), we return to Flashback Summer. Writer Annie Cardi (@AnnieCardi) returned to the show to discuss A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle , a formative read for many 90s children who aspired to be psychic marine biologists. Listen on your way to the beach, and make sure to share it with any dolphins who might want to listen in...

  Sure, we at Worst Bestsellers have read several self-help books over the years, but you may be asking: what about the men? Oh, you weren’t asking? Well, Dave Hollis (ex-husband of Rachel) is concerned, and he wrote Get Out Of Your Own Way to help men understand that they have problems too. And we made that Margaret Willison ‘s problem, as she returned to discuss this book with u...

We asked a djinn to bring us a book that could be adapted into a video game, a Netflix series, and a podcast episode, and we got The Witcher: The Last Wish  by Andrzej Sapkowski . We were joined by Arielle to discuss this book that, to our great surprise, was actually pretty good–and best of all, didn’t even have a fantasy map in it. Hire a bard to perform this episode for you in your...