In episode two of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast, I share some of the indie books I've been reading lately, congratulate the winners of the Selfies awards, show you where to find more indie books, and spotlight a new indie book of the month.
If you love cosy fantasy, witches, and thrillers, this episode is for you! Hit play, turn the page, and find your next favourite indie read! Listen Here:
Show Notes:
Here are the links included in this episode.
Read the Transcript:
Kay M. Weston: Welcome back to Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast.
I'm your host, Kay, and this is the second episode of the new indie podcast format. If you missed episode one, where I chatted about why this podcast exists and what it's all about, do go back and check it out. Coming up today, I'll be chatting about the books I've been reading since the last episode, sharing even more places where you can find new indie books and authors, celebrating the winners of the Selfies awards, and sharing a new spotlighted indie book of the month. I'm going to kick off the podcast today by helping you stuff those ever-growing TBRs with even more great indie books by sharing what I've been reading since the last episode. First up is Whisper of Witches by Nikita Rogers. This is an author I hadn't heard of before picking up this book. I actually had the pleasure of meeting Nikita at the Tales on Trent book fair last year, and it was immediate cover love for me. Go and Google the cover for this book, and you'll see why I couldn't resist. Emily Snaith, the cover artists, should really take the credit for why I picked this book up in the first place. Whisper of Witches is the first book in a fantasy series that currently has three books in the series. I'm not entirely sure of the specific genre as it's sort of magical realism meets urban fantasy meets clean romance, which works for me since I love things that don't stick within the usual mold. The book is about a young journalist named Anna who's paying her dues working at a newspaper, writing the fluff pieces, when what she really wants is a big juicy story. But when she heads to a small village to get a story on the strange practices of the local "so-called witches", she's invited by Ezra, a local archeologist to report on what could be a significant historical discovery. If you enjoy stories about witches and the occult, this book has tons of interesting snippets of history twined within the story. In particular, the treatment of women accused of witchcraft and some of the practices during trials were exceptionally grim, but interesting to read about. While I think it's supposed to be a mystery, I was able to work out the outcome of the book fairly early on, but it didn't ruin my enjoyment. My biggest issue was actually a pretty trivial one, really, in that I wanted to know where the story was set. At times, I thought it might be America, but then at other times I wondered if it was Ireland where the author lives. If anyone knows, I'd love for you to let me know, because it really bugged me. The plot of Whisper of Witches is fairly light and adventurous with some more gruesomely described elements. I didn't really expect those, but they did add to the overall impending doom feeling that surrounded the two main characters. Ezra and Anna were interesting main characters in that both have major flaws in their personalities that are clear on the page. At times, they were challenging characters for me, as I didn't agree with some of the things they did, a lot of the things that they did, but it was definitely an interesting dynamic that I haven't really read before and an interesting start to a series, as well as a fun introduction to the author. I'm looking forward to finding out what happens to Anna and Ezra in book two. I am a pretty slow reader, to be honest, which wasn't helped by the fact that I was pretty ill this month. I've also been working hard on my own fantasy, short story collection, which is very nearly finished. So, I'll have more to share with you on that, hopefully next time, if you're interested. But to fuel my love of witchy and fantastical things, I did manage to find time for some other fun stuff this month. The first came in the form of a Kickstarter I stumbled across called, Tarot for Fiction Writers by Jessica Arden Cline. It's all about using tarot in fun and interesting ways to inspire your fiction writing, and I absolutely love this kind of thing. It also gave me an excuse to get more tarot cards. I have three sets now. I don't think there's ever too many. It's like with Dungeons and Dragons, you can never have too many sets of dice. The book won't be shipped out until later this year, but I did attend Jessica's workshop, which was a lot of fun. If you enjoy tarot and you're writing fiction or thinking about it, do check out the Kickstarter. I also yesterday took a trip with my family to Powys Castle in Wales, which was not only a lovely day out but also really fascinating. The castle itself is packed full of Greek mythology inspired art, and the tour guides told really great stories, which helped fuel my imagination. I'm working on a Greek mythology-inspired retelling at the moment, so that was a lot of fun. The castle also contained a lot of important Indian history about the Castle's connection to the East India Trading Company. Since my only very limited knowledge of that was from Pirates of the Caribbean, it was really interesting to learn more about it. Back to books though, I did receive a lovely arc copy of an indie book this month. Second Soul by Corwin Michaels. It's the first book in a new fantasy saga all about a war with demons. Actually, they're dreamons as they dwell in dreams, which is a pretty cool play on words. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but it's waiting for me on my Kindle. That book is out on April 24th, but can be added to your TBR now. I'm also currently reading Kit & Basie by Tess Carletta, which I mentioned last week, and is another of my Kickstarter purchases. I'm only 20% of the way into this so far, but I am hooked. To be honest, I was hooked from page one because it was just so well written and drew me in immediately. Kit & Basie is a cosy fantasy with LGBT characters. So far, it feels like magical realism as the characters live in a seemingly ordinary town, but with lots of impossible things happening throughout. The tagline, which made me buy this book was, "immortality is a dangerous affair when it isn't done right." I'll let you know my full thoughts on that book in the next episode. But what about you? What indie books are you reading right now? Let me know at [email protected]. In the last episode, I went through a bunch of different places where you can find indie books to read, but I have more. Wattpad was one I really should have mentioned last time, especially since it's where my own book is hosted right now. Realising that I'd forgotten was a huge face palm moment for me. There is some controversy happening around Wattpad at the moment, and people posting works that they haven't written. So, I'd recommend that you try to read works that are published by the actual author. I think it's usually pretty easy to tell actually as most of the ones that aren't posted by the author typically include a line about the credit belonging to someone else or something similar. I'm sure Wattpad will announce something about this soon since it's gaining more attention, but for now there are some really great indie books on Wattpad. Smashwords is another big one; they're an online ebook retailer with around a million indie eBooks for sale, some for free. A really cool feature is that you can search based on price and story length as well as genre, which is helpful if you're looking for a short read or something on the cheaper scale. They also host regular sales and special deals like their Read an eBook Week event that ran recently. There'll be another big sale in July, and all of the books sold via Smashwords can be read on any device. Another one that I just discovered, though I believe it's only for .com, so US readers, is Audible's indie lit page. If you're a big audiobook fan, then this page is supposed to highlight audiobooks and original stories from independent creators. I'm in the UK, and I can see the page, which is great, but I'm not sure I can purchase from it. So, I've been writing down the names of indie audiobooks I see highlighted there and then searching for them on the Audible UK website instead, and getting them that way. If you give it a try, let me know how it works for you, depending on what country you're in. My last tip for finding indie books for this episode is Reddit. I'm not on Reddit, but I do use it when I'm looking for specific book recommendations. Usually, if I search for any sort of book recommendation on Google, Reddit is one of the, if not the top search result. I was looking for some new indie fantasy books recently and typed 'fantasy books by indie authors' into Google, and the first thing that came up was a Reddit thread asking, 'what are the best indie fantasy books you read this year?' And it was chock full of recommendations. I know that you can search Reddit itself using the Reddit search bar, but I tend to just search Google and Reddit comes up top most of the time. This next section of the podcast was supposed to be a tad more exciting as I should have been at the London Book Fair, which took place last week at the time of recording this. But I was laid out by a cold among other things. So, while I wanted to try and chat with the winning authors and nominees of the Selfies Awards at the fair, we'll have to make due with a quick round up instead. The Selfies Awards is an indie-only award that's been running since back in 2018 and sets out to award the best indie published fiction, children's book, and general nonfiction book each year. The awards take place, I think always, at the London Book Fair, and this year, the winners were Julia Boggio for best fiction book with her romcom, Shooters. It's a romance between two wedding photographers that sounds like a lot of fun. I actually used to dabble in wedding photography and let's just say never, ever again. It was an experience that's for sure, and one I'd rather read about than participate in. J.F. Penn won the general nonfiction book award with her travel memoir book, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways, which sounds like a good one if you like travel memoirs or going on multi-day walks. I love a good walk, usually for a couple of hours with a pub lunch being my reward at the end. I really don't think I could manage a multi-day walk, though it does sound impressive. Finally, Jill-Michelle Smith and Jennifer Watson took the best children's book award for their book, Extraordinary Extinct Prehistoric Minibeasts: A First Guide to Fossils. A bit of a mouthful, but I love this kind of thing. My nine-year-old has so many books on dinosaurs and fossils. She went through a huge Mary Anning obsession a few years ago, and while we haven't read this book, it's definitely one I'll pick up because it sounds brilliant and the illustrations by Jill are just beautiful. That's it for this year's winners so do go and check those out if any take your fancy. And now drum roll, please. It's time for my indie book pick of the month. This is where I feature a fantastic indie book that I have read and loved, and I believe it deserves a place on your TBR. This week, I'm talking about Bury Me by Tara Sivec. So, get ready for a dark and twisted young adult book that will keep you guessing until the very end. Tara Sivec is one of my all time favorite indie authors. She's super successful, writes in a bunch of genres, mostly romantic comedy, but also romantic suspense, new adult drama, contemporary romance, and psychological thriller. One of her romantic comedy books, Seduction & Snacks has been made into a movie by PassionFlix, and it's such a fun movie. I highly recommend you check it out, but probably suggest you read the book first. It's a lot of fun. Seduction & Snacks actually made me fall off an exercise bike once because it made me laugh so hard while I was reading it. But today I wanted to talk about the psychological thriller, Bury Me. Now to be clear, I don't read psychological thrillers, they've never really been my thing. I'm very much a fantasy girl who loves all things magic, and thriller movies tend to scare the crap out of me, even the tame ones. Phonebooth, I am looking at you. So, by all accounts, I shouldn't have really liked Bury Me, but I did. So much so that I couldn't put it down and read it in one day, and I haven't forgotten it since. Here's the blurb. I hear screams in my head. I see blood on my hands. When I look in the mirror, I see a stranger. How is it that I can remember bits and pieces of my life, but nothing of any importance and nothing that makes any sense? Everything is twisted and nothing is right. I'm choking with every breath I take, suffocating on the unknown. Two days ago, everything changed. Two days ago, the people I should trust the most became strangers in my convoluted head. The dreams I have, can't be real. The fleeting memories that whisper through my mind are scary and wrong. They have to be. If they aren't, I have something much worse to fear than my fractured mind. I need to find out the truth, even if it destroys me. I've been told my name is Ravenna Duskin. I'm 18 years old and I live in a prison. The prison setting really upped the tension for me with this one, and the plot itself messed with my head. The story is told from the perspective of the main character, Ravenna, and I just did not see the twists coming. Like I said, I don't read thrillers at all. So, whether this one is tame or not compared to others, I really couldn't say, but it definitely had me on the edge and terrified throughout. So, if that's a feeling you enjoy, I'd highly recommend you check it out. If you do read Bury Me, let me know what you think. I'll have another indie book pick of the month for you next time. So, we've reached the end of the second episode of this new indie book podcast, but before I let you go back to balancing those toppling TBRs, I want to hear from you. If you have an indie author you'd love to hear on the podcast, a favorite indie book you think I absolutely must know about, or anything else you'd like to hear on a future Turn the Page episode, then get in touch and let me know. The email to reach out to me is [email protected]. Any links I've chatted about in today's episode will be included in the show notes, and if you're an indie author and you'd like to appear on the podcast to chat about your books, there's a form you can fill out and I'll include the link to that in the show notes as well. Obviously, I can't guarantee everyone a slot, but do fill the form out anyway, and hopefully I can chat with you at some point in the future. That's the end of episode two of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast. I've had lots of fun chatting with you about indie books I'm reading and sharing more ways to find new indie books to fall in love with. If you're on Spotify and interested in writing yourself, I've linked to a really great podcast I enjoy from Sacha Black, the Rebel Author Podcast. I'm also currently obsessed with Taylor Swift's Eras tour playlist, I've also linked to that this month on Spotify, which has given me a great idea for a fun future episode, so do keep an ear out for that. Next episode, I'll be sharing tips to help you support your favorite indie authors plus more book recommendations and a new indie spotlight of the month. Until then, don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review if you enjoyed the show. Until next time, happy reading and keep turning the page.
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