In a special book club edition of The Curious Cat Bookshop Podcast, we recently hosted thriller author Megan Collins shortly after the release of her newest thriller, Cross My Heart, about a woman who becomes obsessed with the husband of the donor of her recent heart transplant. We had a lot of fun--but beware that there is a spoiler zone at the end of the podcast!

Buy a copy of Cross My Heart here (limited number of signed copies available upon request)

About Cross My Heart:

She has his wife’s heart; the one she wants is his.

Rosie Lachlan wants nothing more than to find The One.

A year after she was dumped in her wedding dress, she’s working at her parents’ bridal salon, anxious for a happy ending that can’t come soon enough. After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Rosie knows her health is precious and precarious. She suspects her heart donor is Daphne Thorne, the wife of local celebrity author Morgan Thorne, who she begins messaging via an anonymous service called DonorConnect, ostensibly to learn more about Daphne. But Rosie has a secret: She’s convinced that now that she has his wife’s heart, she and Morgan are meant to be together.

As she and Morgan correspond, the pretense of avoiding personal details soon disappears, even if Rosie’s keeping some cards close to her chest. But as she digs deeper into Morgan’s previous marriage, she discovers disturbing rumors about the man she’s falling for. Could Morgan have had something to do with his late wife’s death? And can Rosie’s heart sustain another break—or is she next?

Support the show

More about The Curious Cat Bookshop

Shop online anytime for in-store pick-up or home delivery

Keep track of our in-store and online events

Become a member of The Curious Cat Bookshop! We have a subscription box or you can just add a little bit to help us become more sustainable

Follow us elsewhere!

• Bluesky
• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube (live events stream here)
• Threads

And always, our events locally and online can be found on our website!

If you've ever wondered about how to create a world, the thought process that goes into getting all the moving pieces of an epic fantasy together, and how to create your own unique world, Erin M. Evans is a writer to listen to.

Stacy and Erin discussed the writing process, how she got published, writing a murder mystery in an epic fantasy setting, writing shared-world fantasy, working at Wizards of the Coast, and more.

Erin M. Evans is the author of the Books of the Usurper series, beginning with Empire of Exiles, and the award-winning Brimstone Angels Saga, set in the Forgotten Realms. She is a co-host of the podcast Writing about Dragons and Shit, and a cast member of the actualplay series, Dungeon Scrawlers. Erin lives in the Seattle area with her husband and sons.

Buy her books here: https://curiouscatbookshop.com/search?type=author&q=Evans%2C%20Erin%20M.

Find out more about Erin at https://erinmevans.com/.

Support the show

More about The Curious Cat Bookshop

Shop online anytime for in-store pick-up or home delivery

Keep track of our in-store and online events

Become a member of The Curious Cat Bookshop! We have a subscription box or you can just add a little bit to help us become more sustainable

Follow us elsewhere!

• Bluesky
• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube (live events stream here)
• Threads

And always, our events locally and online can be found on our website!

What does all this generative artificial intelligence mean for authors, artists, and other creators? Is anyone in the AI world paying attention to ethics or accountability? Join us for a discussion of these issues and more with acclaimed author Martha Brockenbrough, author of Future Tense: How We Made Artificial Intelligence—and How It Will Change Everything, and Lori Fena, technology policy thought leader and cofounder of Personal Digital Spaces.

Buy the book: https://curiouscatbookshop.com/list/books-martha-brockenbrough

About our guests:

Martha Brockenbrough (rhymes with broken toe) is the author of more than twenty books for young readers, including YA fiction and nonfiction, picture books, a middle grade mystery, and a chapter book series.

She founded National Grammar Day, wrote game questions for Cranium and Trivial Pursuit, and was co-chair of faculty at VCFA’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program.

Martha won a Pacific Northwest Bookseller Association Award and a Washington State Book Award for her novel The Game of Love and Death. She was also a finalist for the Kirkus Prize.

Lori Fena is a cofounder and the Head of Business Development at Personal Digital Spaces. A recognized technology policy thought-leader, entrepreneur and author, Lori works with pioneering high-tech companies to introduce new forms of technology, as well as innovative policy. Since the start of the networked computing era to the Blockchain, Big Data, AI world of today, she has combined technical curiosity, business acumen, and an activist nature to help found ground-breaking technology companies and to institute international policy.

After receiving a B.S. in Business Information Systems from CSULA, and an Executive Certificate from Harvard Business School – Board Governance for Nonprofit Excellence, Lori began her career as a Business Manager at Applied Physics in Pasadena. She founded and sold an IP strategy company and became the VP of Business Development at Stream International, a $1.2 billion merger of Corporate Software and RR Donnelley Global Software Services.

In addition to running her own companies, Lori is an active investor and board advisor to a number of technology companies. She was Executive Director and later the Chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of TRUSTe.org, and served as the Internet Policy Program Director at the Aspen Institute.

Support the show

More about The Curious Cat Bookshop

Shop online anytime for in-store pick-up or home delivery

Keep track of our in-store and online events

Become a member of The Curious Cat Bookshop! We have a subscription box or you can just add a little bit to help us become more sustainable

Follow us elsewhere!

• Bluesky
• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube (live events stream here)
• Threads

And always, our events locally and online can be found on our website!