The Dust Jacket

Alice Hoffman is one of Dacey's favorite authors, and this book, her latest, starts off with a great voice and an interesting premise. Unfortunately, alongside its good moments come a host of not-quite-good moments, and some downright bad moments. When we started talking about all the ins and outs, we just couldn't stop.  So we decided to split this episode into two parts. Here's part one, part two will be out next Friday, and we'll do one more Spooktober read after that. Sorry. Spoilers from 37 mins Find us on Instagram @dustjacketpod

To kick off Spooktober 2026, we're talking about My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Okay, we cheated a bit, this book is more thriller than horror; in fact, the reason we picked it is because the NYT just placed it at #6 on their list of the best thrillers of the 21st century. Listen in to see if we agree... Spoilers from 29 mins Find us on Instagram @dustjacketpod

We're kicking off Spooktober with a classic! This week we're talking about one of the most famous horror novels of all time.... or at least the novel that became one of the most famous horror movies of all time. With its iconic shower stabbing scene, and possibly the most famous twist ever.  There are spoilers from the jump, but you probably already know the twist, right?  Find us on Instagram @dustjacketpod

We have fantasy fan Sam back to talk about Dungeon Crawler Carl, the breakout hit LitRPG. If you've never heard of the LitRPG genre, it's what would happen if the fantasy genre had a baby with the Dungeons & Dragons rulebook, and their kid was extremely numbers-focused but struggled with interpersonal communication.  No spoiler warning in this episode. We do talk about things that happen late in the book (for example, the ending), but not in a way that will spoil it if you understand that this is the first book of a quite long series.  One other note: we say that the thing with the shamankas only happens in the graphic novel, but it also happens in the book. You'll know the thing with the shamankas when you get there.  Find us on Instagram @dustjacketpod

The marketing copy alternately calls Fruit Fly a satirical thriller and a domestic thriller. Unfortunately for us, trying to do both of those things at once led to a muddled novel that can't quite get out of its own way.  Spoilers from 30 mins Find us on Instagram @dustjacketpod