Gone by Michael Grant is a gripping dystopian novel in which everyone over the age of fifteen suddenly disappears from a small California town, leaving the kids to survive on their own inside a mysterious barrier. As food runs out and strange powers begin to emerge, the remaining children must confront fear, chaos, and the struggle for control in a world with no adults.

Fiona Fenn is an author of fantasy novels that put complicated “heroes” front and center. A fan of villains, redemption arcs, and intense explorations of healing in all its forms, her debut novel,

The Crack at the Heart of Everything, is a love letter to every villain who wanted to do better but never got the chance. The City that Shattered the World is the second book in the series and will be coming out in October 2026!

Drink Blackberry Survival Smash

Ingredients

2 oz bourbon or dark rum

¾ oz fresh lemon juice

½ oz honey syrup

4–5 blackberries (muddled)

2–3 mint leaves

Splash of soda water

Instructions

Muddle blackberries, mint, and honey syrup in a shaker.

Add bourbon and lemon juice with ice.

Shake well and strain into a rocks glass over ice.

Top with a splash of soda and garnish with a blackberry.

In This Episode

Sarah J. Maas

The Spoken World Podcast - Michael Grant Episode

Sweet Valley High Books

Heated Rivalry

Our Rogue Fates by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Style Weekly Best of Richmond - Vote!

Tickets to Live Show with Meg Medina April 18th

On Beauty by Zadie Smith follows two feuding families—the liberal Belseys and the conservative Kippses—whose lives collide in a New England university town, exploring themes of race, family, politics, and love through sharp satire and witty dialogue.

Kirkus Reviews calls Marriage and Other Monuments, Virginia Pye’s recently published book, “A fascinating and audacious novel of family, marriage and a society in flux.” It is a #1 Amazon bestseller in New Southern FictionVirginia’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, Literary Hub, Publisher’s Weekly, Writer’s Digest, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, and, most recently, at GrubStreet in Boston. Virginia is Fiction Editor of the literary journal Pangyrus and serves on the board of the Women’s National Book Association, Boston Chapter.

Drink this week: The Zadie Smith - obvi! This recipe is from the book: Free the Tipple: Kickass Cocktails Inspired by Iconic Women - Check it out!

In this Episode

Marriage and Other Monuments by Virginia Pye

Style Weekly Best of Richmond 2026

Free the Tipple: Kickass Cocktails Inspired by Iconic Women

Tickets to Live Show with Meg Medina April 18th

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is a dystopian horror novel where a virus makes all animal meat poisonous, leading to the legalization and industrialization of human cannibalism! Yes, it’s quite a story by Argentine author Bazterrica, but it also does what great horror does so well, that it makes you think about parallels in our real world, and led to an amazing conversation between myself and author Ashley Peters!

Author Ashley Peters resides in East Austin, Texas, with her partner, Danny, and their three rescue mutts—Bently, Fredrik, and Bruno. A self-declared bibliophile and lifelong storyteller, she has been crafting tales since childhood, along the way writing for various scholarships and minor publications before fully committing herself to the realm of novel creation.

When she is not writing, she can be found immersed in nature, far from the noise of the world—hiking, kayaking, savoring inventive cuisine, or enjoying a matcha latte. At home, her garden and personal library serve as sanctuaries, though she deeply appreciates the artistic and quirky spirit that defines Austin. Having traveled extensively, she credits each place and community with shaping her life in meaningful and lasting ways. While she cannot predict what lies ahead, she embraces each new chapter as an opportunity for adventure, always ready to choose a daring side quest over a mundane path.

Our drink is a very dark Blackberry Margarita, and the reason we picked it? Well, I’ll let you figure that one out 😂

Blackberry Margarita

Ingredients

2 oz silver tequila

1 oz fresh lime juice

1 oz blackberry syrup

0.5 oz grenadine

Black sugar, for rimming

Crushed ice

Fresh blackberries, for garnish

Directions

Prepare your glass. Use a lime wedge to moisten the rim of a margarita or cocktail glass. Dip the rim into a shallow plate of black sugar, rotating gently to coat evenly. Set aside.

Combine ingredients. In a cocktail shaker, add the silver tequila, fresh lime juice, blackberry syrup, and grenadine. Fill the shaker with crushed ice.

Shake thoroughly. Secure the lid and shake vigorously for 15–20 seconds, until the outside of the shaker feels frosty and the drink is well chilled.

Serve. Fill the prepared glass with fresh crushed ice. Strain the mixture into the glass.

Garnish. Add a few fresh blackberries on top. Serve immediately!

In this Episode

Tickets to my Live Interview with Award Winning Author Meg Medina at the Bon Air Book Festival

Bon Air Book Festival

Monkeypaw Productions

Thrutopian Fiction

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is a sharp, witty exploration of love, class, and social expectation in Regency-era England, centered on the spirited Elizabeth Bennet and the enigmatic Mr. Darcy. As misunderstandings and first impressions give way to self-awareness, the novel reveals how pride and prejudice can obscure, and ultimately illuminate, the path to happiness.

Alexandra Potter always dreamed of becoming a writer. After graduating from the University of Liverpool with a degree in English Literature, she moved to London, where she worked for various magazines. A brief detour—sparked by redundancy—led her to travel to Sydney, where she secured a position at Vogue. It was during this time that a chance article about novelists under the age of thirty inspired her to finally take the leap and try her hand at writing a novel.

Her latest book, So I Met This Guy, is out now, and she will be embarking on a book tour in both the US and the UK Tickets Here!

Nothing pairs more with English sensibility than a cuppa tea, which Alex and I both enjoyed during our conversation across the pond!

In This Episode

Brontë Parsonage

Lizzy Bennett Diaries - web series

Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter

Chawton House

Pride and Prejudice BBC

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding

2 Years of Drinks in the Library gets a special episode!

Carrie Pruett, who did the DITL Wuthering Heights Book episode with me, and I discussed the Wuthering Heights Film by director Emerald Fennell, and it was so much fun! There are spoilers so please pause if you are waiting to see it (although the book came out in 1847 so you how mad can you be at spoilers?)

The perfect drink pairing with this book is a very dark and full bodied red wine (we tried Witching Hour Red Blend) and Raspberry Dark Chocolate (we tried Ghiridelli). This is the ONLY food drink pairing for this film, I fully expect this fact to be added to the film’s Wikipedia page!

Thank you so much to Carrie for recording with me, this was a lot of fun, who knows, maybe more film reviews are in DITL’s future!

Here are a few things Carrie mentioned in the episode:

Wuthering Heights (1939) - stars Laurence Olivier

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1992) - stars Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche

Wuthering Heights (2011) - directed by Andrea Arnold (Allison Anders misquoted in episode).

This week’s book is The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, the story of three sisters in 1893: Juiper, Agnes and Beatrice who are hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote, they must use their magic, their wits and alliances to find a way to survive. This led to such an interesting conversation about feminism, sisterhood, science, and lots of magic with this week’s guest: Angie Hilliker!

Angie Hilliker (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Richmond where she teaches undergraduates about the amazing molecular machines in our cells. She also has a research lab where she works with these budding scientists to understand how our cells regulate mRNA, the molecular recipes cells use to make proteins. She is always curious about something, whether it’s something in the lab, in a book, exploring a hobby (including playing the flute and making pottery), or exploring something with her husband and son. When she isn’t reading science papers for work, she likes to read fantasy, historical fiction and romance novels.

In this Episode

James River Writers

University of Richmond

The Sackler Family

The Poe Museum - Richmond

Ally McBeal

The Wayward Sisters:

Herbal, floral, lightly sweet, and aromatic — like walking through a moonlit herb garden. Contains three major flavor components to represent the three sisters in the novel.

Ingredients:

2 oz Hendrick’s Midsummer Solstice Gin (Represents the youngest, but the most intense sister, James Juniper)

1 oz Bénédictine (made from 27 herbs, roots, etc.; a collaboration between a wine merchant and a chemist; represents the oldest sister Beatrice Belladonna, a scholar)

1 tsp of chai tea simple syrup (represents the middle sister, Agnes Amaranth, hard worker, steady, sometimes maternal, like a bracing cup of tea)

2 dashes of orange bitters (there is a lot of bitterness between the sisters, balances the sweetness of the simple syrup)

Orange slice (so much better than lime… this is how G&T are often served in Scotland)

Tonic water

Instructions:

To make the simple syrup, heat 1 c. water, 1 c. sugar, and 6 chai tea bags over medium. Stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a boil and then remove from heat and let cool. Remove tea bags and store syrup in the fridge.

Add the Gin, Bénédictine, and chai tea simple syrup to a shaker with ice. Shake well until chilled, about 15 seconds.

Strain into a glass with ice.

Add two dashes of orange bitters and squeeze in the juice from a slice of orange and drop the slice in the glass. Swirl or stir to mix.

• 5. Top with tonic water to your preferred level and enjoy!

Hi Librarian Nation! This week we are discussing Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, the now-ubiquitous tale of Bella Swan and the vampire who just can’t quit her, Edward Cullen. This story has, of course, been widely read and adapted into famous films, and I was so happy to discuss it with this week’s guests, Christina and Lelia from fellow Richmond book podcast Burn Before Reading!

I was on Burn Before Reading last week talking about being a librarian during the Fifty Shades of Grey craze, so please go check it out (heads up that Burn Before Reading is for mature audiences only!).

Burn Before Reading Podcast is where hosts Christina Kann and Lelia Hilton in an exploration of bad writing, cringey memories, and scandalous literary history. The cringe factor of literature is as ancient as writing itself, and Burn Before Reading is here to explore it all. Every week, Christina & Lelia delve into the story of a piece of writing, a writer, a movement, or a memory to unpack the people they used to be and appreciate how far they’ve come!

O-Positive Party Punch (from Slugs on the Refrigerator Blog)

Ingredients (per glass):

3 oz. cranberry juice

2 oz.pomegranate juice

3 oz.sparkling water

Squeeze of fresh orange

Instructions:

Fill a glass with ice.

Add cranberry and pomegranate juices.

Squeeze in orange and stir.

Top with sparkling water and a thin apple slice.

In this Episode

The Butterfly Effect

Mean Girls Film

This is the Skin of a Killer, Bella!

The Byrd Theater

Books by Stephenie Meyer

Sinners Film

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl is a whimsical children’s novel about Charlie Bucket, a kind, poor boy who wins a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the mysterious Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Since so many know this story, Matthew and I were able to have a conversation about the book’s history and Dahl’s legacy, and about how art and our views of it change over time.

Matthew Stern is an award-winning public speaker and writer with over 40 years of professional experience. His works include the novels Amiga and The Remainders, as well as the best-selling public speaking book Mastering Table Topics. A lifelong resident of Southern California, he grew up in Reseda, graduated from California State University, Northridge, and now lives in Lake Forest. When he’s not rooting for the Dodgers and Rams, he enjoys exercising and spending time with his wife, adult children, and granddaughter. You can find him on social media platforms @MASwriter

Our drink this week is a Greek Cheek Beer, a favorite of Matthew’s from his home in California, and a reference to the gum-smacking habits of Violet Beauregaard. If you are in California definite check it out. For those of us outside of the Golden State, Sam Adams Chocolate Bock would have be a great pairing for this book.

In this Episode

Roald Dahl Revision Controversy

Wonka vs Wonka The problem with overly likable characters - Matthew Stern