In today's episode, Cyrus bullies Sarah into reading a book she really enjoys. Sucker! For fans of pining, fealty, political maneuvering in a fantasy setting, and panic attacks, you can't go wrong with A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland. Naturally, Sarah spends the entire episode second-guessing how to pronounce the names after literally looking it up.

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This week, we're reading Nat Cassidy's second horror novel about vampires, babies, and New York real estate that is so completely not ADA compliant. With special guest, our friend and resident horror book recommender Katie! Talking points include: navigating the inherent antisemitism of vampire mythology, Capri-sunning a human being, different types of evil landlords, and truly so much stuff about motherhood. I'm sure three childless adults in their thirties are really gonna be the expert on that subject.

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Cyrus saw Alien Romulus and loved it so much they immediately went back to see it a second time; Sarah saw Alien Romulus and experienced an internal crisis about the state of feminism in 2012. Somehow, we reconcile these two experiences.
Contains spoilers for all of Alien Romulus, discussions of racism, and discussions of sexual assault in the context of the Alien franchise. But mostly a lot of excited babbling about set pieces and what it means to make a great genre film.

Also, exciting news: this is our last holdover episode before we go off hiatus! As part of our new vibe, we're going to start posting our episodes in advance so ya'll can have a chance to read along if you feel so inclined. To that end, here are the episodes you can expect to hear coming up:

• Nestlings by Nat Cassidy
• A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
• DANMEI BEAT-DOWN: Sarah pitches three separate danmei novels to Cyrus with one of them becoming a future episode.

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