What I Read In October

 

Here's what i read on October. 13 books total. Of those, exactly none were 5 stars 😫, four were 4 stars, six were 3 stars, and three were 2 stars. A mediocre month ago said and done.

Five of the thirteen were review copies. I took a step back from those to try to knock down my actual tbr a bit. Four of them were audiobooks. Six of these were print. The longest book was 403 pages. The shortest book was 120. A total of 2364 pages read.

Mother Dauber by K Bengston

I bought this ebook when it first released, but lord knew when I’d actually get to it. Bengston had audio download codes available and I had to throw my hand up — I needed something to keep me company on my commute, and I knew I’d get to it much faster this way.

And honestly? I’m glad I did. The narration for this book is fantastic. The pacing, the emotional beats, the creeping dread, the twist on the cryptid‑horror genre... it all lands. It leans into that classic “you should never go home again” trope, but he balances the creepy stuff with the emotional stuff so well that you feel fully invested from the get-go. And, watch out, soft spoiler alert you for animal lovers, thank god he didn’t kill off the dog! Genji, the grocery store owner, though…

The story follows Delilah, whose uncle convinces her to move back home to care for her rapidly declining mother - a woman suffering from dementia and a severe case of the orneries that has scared off every home‑care nurse in the county. Delilah assumes it’ll be a painful but pretty straightforward gig. Her childhood home and the woods surrounding it, though, have other plans.

It doesn’t take long before her mother’s mood swings become the least of her worries. Delilah starts hearing familiar voices and old nursery rhymes from her past, echoing through the house and the trees. At first, she thinks it's all in her head. But as she rekindles her friendship with the local sheriff Clay, he admits he can hear it too. And then there's the dauber nests that keep appearing outside her mother’s window — no matter how many times she scrapes them away — are a whole new level of “absolutely not.”

As her mother continues to deteriorate, Delilah realizes something is out there beyond the tree line, watching them, messing with them and it all seems tied to the old farm on the other side of the woods. Memories, nightmares, and ancient dark things begin to surface, and Delilah starts to understand that whatever is making her mother sick might be far worse than dementia.

This was a great audio experience — well‑paced, well‑performed, and deeply atmospheric.

How to Survive Camping: The Man with No Shadow by Bonnie Quinn

I bought this cheap on Chirp and thank god. The narration was fine. But holy hell this book was manic and pure chaos.

The campground owner got into fights with the supernatural entities that are trapped on her ancestrial property literally every five minutes. I saw someone comparing it to the TV series Supernatural but guuuuurrrlll.... even Supernatural had the wherewithal to only fight one crytpid creature per episode. And you would think that by subtitling it "The Man With No Shadow" Bonnie was going to take the same approach but nah. She had her protagonist Kate contend with dancing fairies, little demon kids selling ice out of a wagon, the man with a skull cup, a vanishing house, and a crying girl before getting to the final boss. And that's not even all of them!

I was hoping for a cutesy horror book to get me into the halloween spirit but this was just eye roll and side eye city for me.

Nightjars by Michael Wehunt

I see some of you out there gushing over this book and I'm sitting here, still gnawing on it like... really?! Because this was such a weird one for me. While I was reading it, it was ok. When I put it down, though, I found I wasn't dying to pick it back up and had to force myself to stop doom scrolling because the more I delayed, the more this was going to hurt my book average for the month, LOL. What a way to motivate myself to keep reading, huh?

I didn't hate it, though I did consider DNFing it a few times there in the beginning, but I am definitely struggling to see what everyone loved so much about it. It was clunky, in some spots oddly hard to follow, and in other spots I found it to be painfully slow. When it finally got to where it was going, I found I just didn't care - about the characters, about their situation, about the kind of vampy-vamps they were. I really just wanted to get to the end so I could put it down forever.

Not a horrible book but definitely not one I will be talking about after this review is published.

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

Okay, yes... I'm aware... it was absolutely time I finally read this. How have I been calling myself a horror girlie all these years without tackling one of the genre’s most infamous classics?!

Consider that problem solved and the box has now officially been checked.

I’m honestly tempted to rewatch the film now, because I only remember it in bits and pieces, and I’m curious to see how the two stack up against each other, especially with the book so fresh in my head.

Let me get this out of the way: I could not stand the mom, and the cop grated on my nerves, but the dark, exhausted, morally fraying priest? Oh man, he’s the character who completely hooked me. And sure, some of the dialogue is undeniably dated (“what’s doing?” made me cringe every time), but it is a product of the 70s, and while certain lines haven’t aged gracefully, the atmosphere absolutely has.

Once Regan’s possession tightens its grip, the book becomes impossible to put down. The tension, the dread, the slow slide into full‑blown horror — I flew through those chapters. I love how deeply the book dives into the psychological side of things, and doesn't spend a lot time in the gory spaces.

If you grew up on the movie like I did but never actually read the source material, it’s worth correcting that. The book has a much different vibe, and honestly, it deepened my appreciation for the story in a way I didn’t expect.

I read a used mass market copy of the book that was pretty yellowed and battered. Published in 1972, and sold for a whopping $1.75.

Find Me Where It Ends by Cassandra Khaw

This book went someplace I hadn't expected. It’s technically a book about mental health and the slow unraveling of a woman who’s spent her life banishing other people’s ghosts, but the subject matter makes it a strangely gentle read.

Antigone’s family has a weird tradition. Death arrives to greet them in the shape of a dog. A sweet, furry, loyal dog who shows up when your time is running out. Days, weeks, months — you don’t know. You just know the clock has started. And when Antigone’s Death dog appears, her grip on her own mental stability starts to slip.

The book doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff. It talks openly about suicidal ideation, the logistics of planning a death, and the emotional fallout of sharing those thoughts with the people closest to you. It’s frank, vulnerable and, for some I can envision, somewhat unsettling.

And I’m not sure the back cover prepares readers for what this actually is. It’s not horror. And it’s not sci‑fi. It’s more like… cozy speculative fiction wrapped around a very real conversation about mental health. And calling it cozy feels wrong, but also kind of right? There’s a friendly ghost, a dog who’s literally Death but also oddly lovable, and a weird hopeful spin on the idea of controlling the one thing we’re never supposed to control — the terms of our own ending.

It’s a tender book with heavy subject matter, and while it didn’t fully land for me, I can see why it resonates with readers who like their existential dread served warm.

Check your trigger warnings and also go in knowing this is not The Salt Grows Heavy. It's not even The Salt Grows Heavy's cousin.

The Demon Overlord's Retirement Plan by MH Foster

This was an impulse grab from a book‑browsing binge a couple weeks ago. I don’t usually reach for fantasy, but the jacket copy made it sound like a super accessible, quirky read and honestly... who can say no to that?

It is exactly that. It’s low‑stakes, low‑brow, cheeky fun... a cute palette cleanser narrated by a demon overlord who decides he’s done with the whole “eternal evil” thing after his four hundred and forty‑fourth incarnation. He slips into the skin of a joe shmoe farmer and retreats to a quiet little village with his adorably destructive pet goat and acres upon acres of turnips. It's meant to be the beginning of his retirement. But we know it won't be a restful one because, well, there would be no book if he was able to retire peacefully, and because... well, best laid plans and all that.

I’ve seen a lot of Goodreads reviews calling the book annoying, simplistic, or oddly written, but if you go in knowing that it’s meant to be silly and light, it delivers what it promises. It’s brain candy. A breather book. The kind of thing you read between heavier titles when you need something that won’t emotionally or psychologically ruin you.

Now… having said that, I feel absolutely no urge to pick up the other two books in the series. This world was fun for a day, but not one I’m itching to revisit. Cute, quick, and forgettable — and sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

It Looks Like You In the Dark by Mathilda Zeller

Steeped in Native Alaskan folklore, the story follows a young woman and her friends as they search for her missing sister while also trying to fend off a group of white men determined to reopen an old mine in the Kobuk River Valley. In theory it’s a great setup... cultural tension, environmental stakes, and a missing‑person mystery layered with supernatural elements. But for me, it fell a little flat.

The book balances psychological and physical horror in a way that should feel gripping, and for a while it does. You’re constantly questioning the narrator’s reliability, wondering what’s real, what’s myth, and what’s trauma. And it works… until it doesn’t. There was a point where the ambiguity frustrated more than it fascinated.

I went into this expecting to like it more than I did. The folklore elements are intriguing, and the setting is atmospheric, but I found myself getting tired of trying to decode what was happening instead of being swept up in it. It wasn’t bad but it also never fully grabbed me the way I hoped it would.

Underwhelming, but not a waste of time. Just one of those reads where I think I mentally set the bar a little too high.

Blacktail by Scott Hawkins

I see people throwing all the stars at this thing with reviews like "this book fucks" and "fucking hell".

I'm more like "da fuuuk??"

Shame on everyone who gushed over this on bookstagram. I dropped full hardcover price because I was getting major FOMO vibes from all of yall and wtf. This wasn't even that good. I bet everyone who loved this also got gushy over Open Throat.

Woke wolf fiction, get thee behind me. Give me the bitey and bloody bunnies of Watership Down any day.

Bright I Burn by Molly Aitken

A four‑star read that went down easy, hit the October mood just right, and gave me a reason to take another break from the heavier stuff I’ve been wading through. I ditched my NetGalley queue for a hot minute and fell straight into this witchy tale — though it's not the halloweeny broomstick‑and‑warts kind. This one is a dark, literary reimagining of the first woman ever accused of witchcraft in thirteenth‑century Ireland.

Alice is a hard woman to like but an undeniably compelling one to read. She’s self‑sufficient, sharp tongued, and locked in a love/hate tug of war with men. She loves to seduce and control them, and she burns hot when they refuse to bend. So after a succession of husbands meet untimely ends, it's not surprising that the town’s gossip turns into suspicion, and that suspicion turns into accusation.

Bright I Burn is pure feminine rage, simmering beneath the surface until someone shakes the bottle hard enough to make it explode.

Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi

LMAO. I went to review the book on goodreads and read Starch's review first and uhm, yeah, basically same. Except they say they DNFd it and I actually listened to it all the way through. I'll put the link to thier review in the comments. It's hilarious because I felt all the things they felt and thought all the things they thought.

It's a very badly dated story set in a very futuristic world where humans basically nuked themselves extinct, and those who were able to survive became enslaved by vampires - referred to as nobility - who reigned supreme for a good portion of millenia, until the humans began to revolt.

The book opens as the nobility's stronghold on them is weakening. There's a young virgin named Doris and a handsome vampire hunter named D who is half vampire, half human. She hires D to kill the vampire who bit her before she falls under his spell, meanwhile she and every other female we come across falls in love with D the moment they see him, including the big boss vampire's own daughter.

It's cheesy and cringey and the audio narrator wasn't doing the writing any favors. I got the ick too many times to count and honestly, I'm embarassed I didn't figure out the big reveal at the end. I should have seen it coming since the opening of the book but I was otherwise occupied disliking the cardboard characters and funky atmosphere.

I mean, I purchased it on Chirp for five bucks after mentioning it to my husband, who remembered watching and liking the movie when he was a teen. So maybe I should have been more wary LOL.

Chimera Skin by Johnny Compton

I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one. Compton throws us straight into an alien apocalypse with no context, no grounding, just vibes and a whole lotta confusion.

Swanson is a man whose body has been grotesquely modified and fused with others, but we don’t know why. Baptiste is a shimmering, terrifying “silver messiah” who infects people by proximity, but we don’t know what he is or how he came to be. It’s all mystery, no clarity, and the first half left me irritated, annoyed, and wondering why I was doing this to myself.

Then the final 20% hits, and suddenly the lights come on. Compton rewinds the narrative, fills in the missing pieces, and the story finally starts coming together. I was genuinely relieved I hadn’t DNF’d it, because the payoff is surprisingly thoughtful.

Underneath the alien weirdness, Chimera Skin is a human story about the cost of exploration, the way governments treat people as disposable in the name of progress, and how even the monster of the story is just trying to survive the circumstances forced upon him.

It’s not gong to be a universal crowd‑pleaser, but if you give it the time, that last quarter will get its hooks in you and crawl under the skin.

Swallow Us Black Sun by VM Barrigan

The whole time I'm reading this book, I'm thinking it's like a backroom version of death and purgatory. Not as fucked up as Black Farm but not as pleasant as A Short Stay in Hell. IYKYK.

Harrigan has created a hellscape in which you can die a billion icky, terrible, painful deaths and you'll likely respawn in the big long line or you'll regenerate nearish to where you died, and hopefully you'll keep some of your memories so you can try to escape again and be smarter about it this time. every time. for ever. and possibly ever. amen.

I liked it but wasn't in love with it. It absolutely kept my interest though and had me wondering if our main dude was ever going to get out of there. He meets tree cyst sacks that want to eat their way into his body and become his passenger, there's a tiny man who carves his memories into his skin and then cuts it from his body, and these creepy black things with tentacles that steal others away when they are naughty and do horrible things to them that no one can remember. It's kind of twisted and also kind of hokey, but fun and weird in a way I wouldn't know how to describe to someone who hasn't already read the book.

This book came as part of a package I had ordered direclty from the author, which included some pretty cool "extras", and it was super cool of him to send over a signed copy!

At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca

This is the Eric LaRocca I enjoy reading. Grungy and gritty, steeped in grief, and willing to crawl into the dark places people disappear when their worlds start to unravel. Sad and tender and feral all at once. It's the precise brand of fucked‑up intensity only LaRocca can deliver.

They write like someone peeling back their pierced and modified skin to show you the bloody, beating mess beneath. It’s grotesque, human, and strangely beautiful.

Beware of animal abuse triggers though. They are brief but brutal.

The 40 But 10: Jacob Peppers

 

I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!

Today we are joined by Jacob Peppers. Jacob is the author of over forty books, including the bestselling epic fantasy series The Last Eternal, The Seven Virtues, and Saga of the Known Lands. His short fiction has appeared in various markets, and his short story, “The Lies of Autumn,” was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award for Short Prose. He is represented by Andrea Hurst Literary Management. Jacob lives in Georgia with his wife, their daughter Norah, their sons Gabriel, Declan, and Elijah, and three very spoiled dogs. When he isn’t staring at a computer screen muttering curses and talking to himself, he can usually be found running and gasping in a vain effort to keep up with his children.

Why do you write?

That’s a question I get asked quite often and one which, I’m afraid, has no easy answer. At least not one that doesn’t make me look hopelessly self-important or inadvertently mystifies the act of writing, as if it were some spell writers cast.

It isn’t.

It’s just something I love. I love stories. I love the way words, simple combinations of letters and sounds, when done well, can help us to live vicariously through others, experience things we would never have experienced otherwise, and think about things we never would have thought of otherwise.

Okay, fine. Maybe it is a bit like magic. One that I am privileged to get to experience firsthand. There are many who do it better than I, and I’ve yet to find the person who, with even a modicum of effort, does it worse. But not everything, I think, is about doing a thing well. It’s about doing it as well as you can.

And so, I’ll tell my stories as well as I can for as long as I can and hope that someone, somewhere, enjoys them.

 

What do you do when you’re not writing?

Think about writing? Ha. My wife could no doubt regale you with a thousand instances in which I’ve become distracted while my mind works over one plot twist or story snag. But mostly, I spend time with my wife and four kids. In a life full of blessings far beyond what I deserve, they are the best, and I do my best to make sure they know it. 

 

What’s your kryptonite as a writer?

You’ll hear a lot of writers talk about being inspired but that is never the approach I’ve taken. After all, if you’re building a roof and you wait around until the muse decides to drop by (mine, at least, keeps odd hours and often shows up drunk and incoherent) then there’s a good chance you’re going to get rained on. It’s a job—one I’m lucky to do. So, I do it. I have created a routine around it, and I guess my worst kryptonite is a breaking of that routine. One thing goes off a bit—like say I hit snooze one too many times on my alarm—and I can usually get back on task. But two or three… well, then I have to hope it doesn’t rain.

 

How do you celebrate when you finish writing a new book?

Whiskey, mostly. Sometimes, if my wife’s insistent, I take a day off. Usually, though, I don’t. Instead, I celebrate by moving on to the next thing. Some people might imagine a writer’s mind like a sort of assembly line. Bits and bobs (story ideas, characters, settings, etc.) are fed into the front of the machine and, after a complex and largely unfathomable set of processes, come out the other side a book.

My mind doesn’t work like that. It’s more like I am standing in a crowd of thousands of ideas. Big ones and small ones, fat ones and skinny ones, all screaming for my attention. And if I think there’s something there, if the idea has legs… I just realized this analogy is getting pretty gruesome but bear with me. If the idea seems like it could go somewhere, a path I want to travel, then I celebrate the completion of one by beginning another. Usually something of a very different flavor. What can I say? I’m a Neapolitan guy.

 

 What are some of your favorite books and/or authors?

Oh man, this is a good one. I have quite a few and for quite a few different reasons. I’ll start with the Bible, all sixty-six books of it. The inspired word of God, written by men. Tough to beat, that.

Otherwise? There’s a lot. For meaningful, beautiful prose that forces you to pay attention, I’d say there are few better than Cormac McCarthy. I love all his works, but I’m of the opinion that the prologue to No Country [for Old Men] is one of the greatest pieces of writing ever written.

I also find Elmore Leonard’s work to be incredible. There’s a beat, a rhythm to his dialogue and his characters that always baffles me. He has a way of paring down the prose so that every scene hums. That I find incredibly inspiring. And daunting.

There are plenty of others I could talk about… and so I will. Neil Gaiman has a way of transporting you to another world that makes me feel like a kid again, and never mind my aching knees. Then there’s Vonnegut, who makes me think and laugh in equal measure.

And lastly, I’d finish with C.S. Lewis. His fiction is, of course, incredible—there’s a reason Narnia is as popular as it is. But I find his non-fiction just as good, if not better. Mere Christianity is one of those books I recommend to… well, anyone, really. A great, profound read, one that humbles me every time.

There are tons of others. I could write a book on it, but then I’d have to charge you!

 

 What’s the single best line you’ve ever read?

I have several—if it isn’t obvious by now, brevity is not a strength of mine. In fact, if you see where I put all my strengths, could you let me know? I seem to have misplaced them. Meanwhile, I’ll say John 3:16 is a big one for me. Or else Genesis 1:3, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

Otherwise, for pure evocative lines, it’s hard to beat Bradbury’s “It was a pleasure to burn.” It immediately makes the reader—or me, at least—ask a lot of questions, ones that almost demand answering, and I think that’s powerful. “I am a pair of ragged claws,” is another one. I’ve always empathized with Prufrock. Or, “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Oh, but this is supposed to be single lines… Well, I’m afraid I never showed much aptitude for taking instructions and while many things change with age (nose hair is a fine or not so fine example), some do not.

 

 Do you read the reviews of your books or do you stay far far away from them, and why?

Both, I guess. I have a group of dedicated, saint-like beta readers who, over the years, have volunteered their time and energy—and perhaps their sanity—to look over early versions of my books. Them, I listen to very, very closely.

Otherwise… well, when I was a new author, I used to read—and agonize—over every review, looking, hoping, praying for a good one. But what I found is that it took at least ten good reviews to make up for one bad one, so I mostly stopped reading reviews. After all, down that road lies madness, in several of its forms.

I try not to take it personally (but I do anyway). After all, not everything is for everybody and thank God for that. What a boring world that would be.

 

 If you could time travel, would you go back to the past or forward into the future

That’s easy—I’m a past guy. Let the future be uncertain, I say. That’s the joy of it. No use reading the ending of a book before you’ve read the beginning and the middle, is there? As for the past, well, at the risk of being sentimental, there are things I would like to do again. To see and experience again.

I’d like to talk to my granddad (paw paw for those of you from the South like me) again. To meet my wife again, to ask her to marry me and be shocked when she said yes, again.

And of course I’d like to see my children born again, to watch their first steps and hear their first words (and try to make sure they said “daddy” first) again. It is a privilege, a blessing to get to watch them grow. I just don’t know why they have to do it so fast.

It makes me think of a half-finished poem idea I had a few years ago. Largely discarded, but this line has stuck with me ever since because it encapsulates how I feel as a father watching his children grow. I am joy. Poked through with holes.

 

Do you DNF books?

Of course! There are a lot of books in the world, after all, and nowhere near enough time to read them all. I don’t read to not enjoy it, do I? Still, I refuse to give strong opinions (or any opinion at all, when I can help it) on books I don’t finish. That’d be like giving an opinion on a painting when I’d only seen a corner of it, I think, and that isn’t fair to the painter or to the person to whom I’m speaking. Besides, I try to keep my mind on things that are good. There’s plenty enough bad out there—no need to go looking for it.

 

Are you a book hoarder or a book unhauler?

Well, considering that I have only just emptied two boxes of books (purchased at a local library book sale a week or so ago) onto my shelves, I’d say that question answers itself. Though my wife would be happy to do so, in case there was any confusion. Am I a book hoarder? Come on, man. Those are worlds out there. I collect worlds. What a thing!

 

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Purchase a copy here

Dragon riders once ruled the skies… And soon they will fly again.

Centuries ago, dragons and humans defended the land of Astria side by side. Then the empire invaded, with huge creatures of ice and stone. And the dragons abandoned their allies.

Now, every Astrian is born in chains.

Nolan refuses to serve the invaders. On the streets of an occupied city, he picks pockets to survive, desperately staying one step ahead of the guards.

Then he steals from the wrong man…

With a legion of imperial soldiers closing in, Nolan is saved by a mysterious swordsman and his sharp-witted daughter.

As they flee into the mountains, his new companions speak of rebellion. Of an academy where Astrians train to fight. Of magic the empire failed to destroy.

Nolan has no time for legends.

But as he discovers the truth of Astria’s fall, he feels power stirring within him. Power that makes him believe, for the first time, that the empire could be destroyed.

Because the dragons may have vanished. But their fire has not gone out…

Shadow of Dragons is a thrilling epic fantasy of non-stop action, magical creatures, ancient ruins, and long-buried secrets. It’s perfect for fans of John Gwynne, Ryan Cahill, and Pierce Brown.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Feet and Green Sharks: A User's Guide to Not Being a Serial Killer

Disclaimer: The Page 69 Test is not mine. It has been around since 2007, asking authors to compare page 69 against the meat of the actual story it is a part of. I loved the whole idea of it and so I'm stealing it specifically to showcase small press titles - novels, novellas, short story collections, the works! So until the founder of The Page 69 Test calls a cease and desist, let's do this thing....

In this installment of Page 69, 

We put Philip Araoz's Blue Feet and Green Sharks: A User's Guide to Not Being a Serial Killer to the test

Set up page 69.

Adam Fraser is a math PhD candidate who lives his life with structure and organization, maybe compulsion?

No. It’s just structure and organization. Completely normal and understandable, okay?

When the book opens, Adam’s got a “friend” and “study partner” named Amy. Amy is a music graduate student. She and Adam are in a class together because Adam signed up for something called “Set Theory” that he thought was a math class but turned out to be a music class.

Adam stayed in the class.

Not that it had anything to do with Amy, mind you. Music Set Theory has logic and isoforms, so it’s worth studying.

Because while Adam will tell you that Amy is smart and beautiful, he will then immediately tell you that he doesn’t “notice or care” and that he and Amy are “just study partners.”

Really.

So, when Amy asks Adam to express his “feelings,” it doesn’t go well. The only feelings Adam can easily identify are “tired” and “hungry.”

No. It doesn’t go well at all.

Losing Amy leaves Adam’s world fractured.

No. It’s not fractured. It just needs a little refinement. That’s all.

So, in a quest for self-improvement Adam reads books on evolutionary biology. There he discovers the blue-footed booby, a bird where blueness of the feet is a sign of health in the males and is used in courting displays.

From this Adam gets the idea to buy new clothes and improve his look. (Hence the “blue feet” in the title).

Page 69 opens with Adam driving with one of his housemates, Maria. (Adam lives in the basement and has three female housemates upstairs). Maria is telling Adam to exit to “Fog Cut Terrace,” a fancy clothing district in their fictional city.

 

 

What is the book about?

The book is about Adam’s quest. He would describe it as a quest for self-improvement, though the reader will see it’s a quest for human connection.

The problem is that while Adam comes to understand the appearance of human connection, he doesn’t understand the substance of it.

For example, in preparation for a blind date, Adam watches a rom-com in the theater, takes notes, and comes up with a “blind date algorithm” that includes such things as “When the check comes, pay it right away. Don’t ask her why she ate so much.”

The tragedy is that a lot of what he does is successful, or just successful enough that he keeps doubling down on his methods.

The engine of the book is watching Adam come ever so close to a breakthrough. Come so close to looking inside. So close to expressing his vulnerability.

And then watching his logical brain override all that nonsense.

But eventually the reader comes to see the hurts that led Adam to build his walls. The question is whether Adam will come to grips with them.

I don’t know if this counts as “what is the book about” but Blue Feet started as recollections of mine from medical school. When my thirty-year med school reunion came up, I was reminded of what I was like in my twenties, how focused I was. (Probably had to be.) I started jotting down anecdotes.

Maybe some of them had to do with moping about a girl. Maybe not. I don’t remember.

But from those jottings, I discovered an earnest, prickly, unself-aware voice that became Adam’s voice.

 

Do you think this page gives readers an accurate sense of your book? Does it align with the novel’s overall theme?

This page introduces you to the voice—Adam’s voice. His short sentences. The way he pays attention to the geometry of the world around him but tunes out the human part.

It also introduces some of his disordered thinking. Maria is trying to take up smoking to lose weight. Adam doesn’t dwell on how destructive that is. He just knows that Maria is working towards a goal and that she’s accomplishing it, so that’s good.

And you get to meet Maria.

Adam’s three female housemates—Maria, Lisa, and Kaitelyn—are key characters. Maria is the cynical law student. She helps Adam get new clothes (without which the title of the book would make no sense). Lisa is the emotionally intelligent one who sees that Adam’s “quest” is all about forgetting Amy, though Adam denies it. Kaitelyn initially seems like the social one, the one who sets Adam up on dates. Later we see there’s more to her.

The three of them are protective of him. They try to help him. But mainly they serve as the reader’s surrogates, telling Adam “No! Don’t do that!” Having one of them on this page is helpful for that.

But this page isn’t completely representative in that Adam is at his most relatable when dealing with the housemates. When on his own, his thoughts are often rigid, linear. Except when he’s thinking about Amy. Then he borders on literary.

Not too literary, mind you.

This page also does NOT give you a sense of the isolation that pervades this book. (The light tone of my description probably doesn’t represent it either). Watching Adam be so alone and then watching him do things to make himself even more alone walks a line between being funny and extremely sad.

Does it align with novel’s overall theme? Yes. But since the whole novel is told from Adam’s perspective, there aren’t major detours that might make any given scene a complete outlier. It does give you a taste of the path Adam has chosen to walk.

That’s it. Thanks so much to TNBBC for letting me share this with you!

 

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Page 69

Blue Feet and Green Sharks: A User's Guide to Not Being a Serial Killer

Chapter 14

“Exit! I said, ‘Exit!’”

It’s Maria. She’s in the passenger seat. She wants me to exit. She’d been talking about her research assistant job and her demanding boss. But at some point she switched to giving me directions, so it might be time to pay attention.

I’m driving on an elevated part of the highway, passing the white dome of the stadium. Ahead of us are the downtown black skyscrapers, with the flat gray of the ocean behind them. We’re exiting into the district between them—Fog-Cut Terrace. It’s a big pedestrian square surrounded by clothing stores.

We take the exit, loop through narrow streets until Maria directs me to a parking ramp, and we circle up and up. When we finally park, Maria waits for me to get out, circle around, and open the passenger door. Then she hops out of the car, lights a cigarette. Puffs it a few times without coughing.

Her hard work is paying off.

She stands, cigarette in hand. Black trench coat with a belt. Black boots.

“Adam, when is the last time you bought clothes?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.” She puffs on a cigarette. “And you got the idea to buy clothes from a biology textbook.”

“Yes.”

 “There you go.” She puffs again. “Biology is good for something after all.” 

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Philip Araoz was born to immigrant parents in a U.S. military family. During his childhood, he lived in places ranging from Portugal to Alaska. He attended Harvard College and afterwards lived in Bogotá, Colombia, where he taught elementary school and wrote a novel he never published.

He went to medical school at the University of Washington. His subsequent medical training took him to Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, California. He is now a Professor of Radiology at a prestigious medical center in Rochester, Minnesota and has numerous academic medical publications.

He is now returning to fiction because he has two things he lacked when he was young—perspective and money. Blue Feet and Green Sharks is his debut novel.

Blue Feet and Green Sharks: A User's Guide to Not Being a Serial Killer

Character study   |   Coming of age

Goodreads   |    Amazon

Release date: October 28 2026

I don’t know what the deal is with “feelings.” —Adam Fraser

A deadpan anti-rom-com character study of grief and rigid armor.

Adam Fraser is a first-year math PhD candidate with a friend and study partner, Amy - a music graduate student and a cellist. While Adam will admit that Amy is smart and strong and beautiful, he is adamant that he "doesn't notice or care." He doesn't just suppress his emotions. He can't even identify them.

He doesn't know how.

So when Amy asks Adam to express his feelings, the results are disastrous.

This starts Adam on a quest to understand human interaction. He reads books on evolutionary biology. He takes detailed notes on romantic comedies. He uses every tool of logic to control the messiness of real connection. And he keeps at it until his carefully constructed world falls apart.

Blue Feet and Green Sharks is a character study showing how the armor we wear so often weighs us down instead of protects us and the limits of reason in solving human emotion.

*AI Transparency - the author leveraged AI for fact verification and cover image touchups. The text and cover were all human creation.