Summary: From horror to Hallmark, a small town setting is ripe for intrigue for Holly and Devin this week. Join our hosts as they break down books set as far from a city as possible. Living in a town of 3,000 people, Devin feels right at home with a rural community and Holly brings the creepiness and the connections of more isolated regions via her book. Both hosts agree that rural settings turn up the heat in their respective wheelhouses, but with wildly different outcomes (you know, bonking vs. butchering).
Topics Discussed:
The Heart (3:59): Devin discussed Maggie Moves On by Lucy Score, a novel following Maggie Nichols as she takes on her most audacious flip project yet in the tiny town of Kinship, Idaho. With a goal of renovating the famed Victorian mansion in less than 4 months and hitting one million subscribers on YouTube, Maggie has no time for the flirtatious and talented landscaper Silas Wright, until he shows her that maybe he and the town are the exact things she should be focused on. Devin’s key takeaways were:
The tiny town of Kinship is the opposite of everything Maggie has ever known and is what makes Silas who he is. Silas cannot imagine living somewhere outside of Kinship and has a big, boisterous family that he sees 2-3 times / month in a group setting. Maggie has been on her own since 21 and only lives in the same place for 3 months at a time. The setting plays a huge role in how they develop as a couple and individually.
When do we need people, when do we want people, and how often should life be done alone? Maggie and Silas are diametrically opposed at the start of the book; Silas loves being vulnerable and trusting his gut, and Maggie can’t do anything without a spreadsheet. Score explores vulnerability and how we grow best through our protagonists’ differing viewpoints.
With references to YouTube comments, gifs, viewership, editing, posting, etc. as well as choices for each room and a whole team of people working on the house and landscaping, this book was an HGTV lover's dream. It was fun to hear about this mansion-sized undertaking and some interior decor subplots.
The Dagger (20:07): Holly discussed Bad Cree by Jessica Johns, a literary horror book following Mackenzie, a young Cree woman who has moved to Vancouver to avoid facing her sister Sabrina’s untimely death. In the last few weeks she’s been followed everywhere by crows and her nightmares featuring crows, a frozen lake, and her sister’s body have been intensifying. Soon enough, Mackenzie and the reader reckon with the fact that something is going on after she dreams she falls through ice into the lake; Mackenzie wakes up drenched and her phone is broken - the last location of which is showing at the lake hundreds of miles away. Holly’s key takeaways were:
Mack has fled to Vancouver but returns home to learn to embrace her roots again and not run from pain. At home things are much more in the open: the community is small, people’s actions are visible, the land itself is very visible with the plains and farmland. The area has suffered both from companies coming in to frack and extract resources from the land and then abandon the community once they took what was valuable; the community grapples with generational and recent traumas.
Grief plays a huge role throughout this story; not only is Mackenzie navigating the death of her sister Sabrina; the whole family is also still reeling from the loss of their matriarch, Kokum, several years before.
Ultimately even though there are classic horror elements, family and community play a huge role in Bad Cree. The characters are so close and play specific roles within their larger community; knowledge is passed around and sought out from the elders, there are traditions of late night card games and poker. The theme of crows throughout is a metaphor for sticking together, for mourning our dead, for watching each others’ backs.
Hot On the Shelf (38:42):
Holly: The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino
Devin: The Prospects by KT Hoffman
What’s Making Our Hearts Race (42:31):
Holly: Dodgers Baseball
Devin: Spring Skiing
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