Ep 770 - She Waits Where Shadows Gather, by Michelle Tang

Craig (0:00)

This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Andrew, I miss summer.

Andrew (0:03)

Yeah, you do, it just ended.

Craig (0:05)

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Andrew (0:32)

I did switch to Mint many years ago. And summer, fall, any season you've got, I think Mint Mobile's service is roughly equivalent in all of them. It is unbounded by-

Craig (0:44)

By time.

Andrew (0:45)

By linear time, by the calendar. It's just good service whenever you need it.

Craig (0:49)

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Andrew (1:34)

This is a HeadGum Podcast. While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

Craig (1:48)

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey, everybody, welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

Andrew (2:16)

My name is Andrew.

Craig (2:18)

And here we are in the first week of Spooktober.

Andrew (2:22)

Spooktober.

Our 13th, our 14th. Is this the lucky, unlucky number 13th, Spooktober? I don't know.

Craig (2:32)

I've lost count of Spooktober.

Andrew (2:34)

We'll count them. We didn't do it the first year of the podcast, but we did it every year after that.

Craig (2:38)

Okay, sure.

Andrew (2:40)

But I'll count. And if it's the 13th, we'll retroactively make this episode better than the one you're about to listen to.

Every year? Well, okay. So every week on our book podcast, one of us reads a book we've never read before, and we tell the other person about it. And then every year on our weekly book podcast, we devote the entire month of October to nominally spooky books.

Craig (3:06)

Yeah, books that are about spooky stuff, books that are spooky themselves, books that are by spooky people, thrillers, spillers and killers, chillers. Yeah.

Andrew (3:19)

Ben Stillers.

Craig (3:21)

The spookiest Stiller.

And here we are back again. We have more wonderful books to share with you this month. But first, Andrew, what book did you read for this week's show?

Andrew (3:34)

I read She Waits Where Shadows Gather by Michelle Tang. Craig, first thing is you'll be happy to know.

It's a novel.

Craig (3:43)

Oh, I was worried.

Andrew (3:46)

It says so on the cover in a different typeface than it uses for everything else.

Craig (3:51)

How spooky when the marketing is so forthright.

No, this is her debut novel. I know that she had published a novella, Dummort, which we'll talk about briefly before this. You found this through like an NPR list, right, Andrew, of like folks' favorite books of 2026, right?

Andrew (4:12)

Yep. Yep. Periodically, when we're programming the show, I'm just like, what are other people like?

Craig (4:17)

Honestly, that is a way... That is kind of where all the books for this show come from. Other people have liked them, right?

Andrew (4:25)

I mean, once you've done 700 and something, you do run out of the books that are literally on your own bookshelf waiting for you to read them.

Craig (4:32)

Yes, yes. But we also, you know, I think we found plenty of books that are, oh, somebody said I would like that.

Andrew (4:39)

I should go read that or, you know, Or just like it's, you know, it's on a list for genre reasons or I trust this person or this outlet's taste on other things. I am happy to have found a book list that's not written by AI that I can pull ideas from. That's always good. That's fun.