S14:Ep281 - Never Say Die with Guest Meredith Doench + Unusual Narrators Book Recs - 6/10/26

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Meredith Doench at www.meredithdoench.com or on IG at @meredithdoench   If you’ve listened to our show for a while, you may be aware that we’ve interviewed several Ohio authors. Katrina Kittle, Erin Flanagan, Christina Consolino, and Sharon Short (who has also published under the name Jess Montgomery) have all been guests and all are part of a writing group called the Cute City Bitches.    But there was one writer in that group whom we hadn’t yet interviewed, but now we have. Meredith Doench teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Dayton and is a writer of sapphic thrillers, which is perfect since June is Pride Month. We’re delighted she joined us to talk about her latest book titled Never Say Die, a novel about a detective named Rory Scott who has to contend with her own mother-daughter issues when someone in the community for the second time in six years, kidnaps a young girl and murders a teenager. Meredith talks to us about her love of crime novels and how writing and marketing novels with LGBTQ characters has changed since she began publishing.    Our book rec segment of the show this week focuses on books with unusual narrators. These are narrators who aren’t human, and they might not even be tangible. We’ve got books narrated by sheep, Death, and dead people, as well as a mechanically-inclined world traveling gorilla, a Mediterranean fig tree, and a centenarian tortoise.   Books Mentioned In This Episode: 1- Never Say Die by Meredith Doench  2- Crossed by Meredith Doench  3- This American Woman: A One in a Million Memoir by Zarna Garg  4- Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontes by Devoney Looser  5- Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt  6- Lord of the Flies by William Golding  7- Heartwood by Amity Gaige  8- Deer Season by Erin Flanagan  9- The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau  10- Predatory Natures by Amy Goldsmith  11- A Book Recommended by a Fellow Book Lover  Michele Terranova @bookwhisperer22 - I See You've Called in Dead by John Kenney  12- Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann  13- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak  14- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold  15- The Murderer's Ape by Jakob Wegelius  16- The Island of the Missing Trees by Elif Shafak  17- The Tortoise's Tale by Kendra Coulter    Media Mentioned: 1- Remarkably Bright Creatures (Netflix, 2026) 2- Lord of the Flies (Netflix, 2026) 3- I Know My Name is Steven (1989) 4- Sheep Detectives (2026) 5- The Book Thief (2013) 6- The Lovely Bones (2009)