Ep 112 Liz makes Ashley Return to Oz, was it worth it? | West of Wicked by Nikki St Crowe

Did you see that we got to interview Nikki St. Crowe?! When the Queen of spicy fairytale reimaginings calls, you answer and promptly cover her new book West of Wicked!  We thought we’d made it out of the Oz universe alive and *relatively* unscathed but “spoiler alert* we got sucked right back in. Are we happy about it? Listen on to find out. 

West of Wicked is book one in the Great and Terrible Land trilogy, with book one out now, and book two East of Envy scheduled to release on November third of this year! So buckle up for a whole new take on Dorothy, the witches, and her most beloved companions. 

Oz is creepier and dark, Dorothy is an older and more powerful badass, the Scarecrow is tall, dark and handsome, the Tin Man is a mercenary with a bionic arm, and the Lion and Wizard… you’ll just have to read to see. Stick around for our spoiler free reviews, spice ratings, deep dive summary (brought to you by Ashley this time!) and a lovely side tangent where Liz plays “the cups.” We apologize in advance for the chaos. But listen, we’re not in Kansas anymore. 🤷‍♀️

We’re bringing you all of this, plus a weekly fave and fail with When the Moon Hatched, a car buying fiasco, and a funny catchphrase experiment, and a themed smash or pass, Oz style… with not one, but TWO bionic arms. 😏

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Check out these narrator interviews? ⬇️

Anthony Palmini gives us the lowdown on what it’s like to voice act Rhysand, Kingfisher, AND Slade Ravinger! 

https://youtu.be/zcCyrlZ5Jcc?si=2k7ULbRPgZl_5pUJ

Check out these author interviews? ⬇️

Nikki St. Crowe, the queen of spicy fairy tale retellings chats with us about diving into the land of Oz with West of Wicked! https://youtu.be/wwFYSDKcbtE?si=X6iNmUVAE6Xhmv7B

We interviewed Callie Hart all about her NYT Bestseller Quicksilver! Watch it here! https://youtu.be/CED5s7qDBdQ?si=8xtIRO1IzX6Rsld4

Check the official Follow Up Author Interview with Lindsay Straube of the Split or Swallow Universe all about Between Two Kings! https://youtu.be/OW1cxXTVcTc?si=oOxVIzbIheET_bNE

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Transcript

Whoever might be new to us and is like, "What the hell are they even talking about?" Welcome. Makes me cringe so hard. I don't know why I hate it. Surprise, surprise. I did the five sentence summary today. It's like once you get going, it's hard to stop. We have a giveaway.

Welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast, guys. I'm Liz. And I'm Ashley. And today we are doing our West of Wicked deep dive,

the followup to the episode where we got to interview the amazing Nikki St. Cro. That was such a fun interview. And if you want to check it out before diving into this book, if you maybe haven't read it yet and you want to see a spoiler-free interview, find out a little bit more about the behind the scenes, some of the things that went into writing this retelling, then check out that episode. It'll be linked down in the description box, but it's super fun, so chill, so cool. What a great opportunity to be able to talk about the freaking awesome Nikki Synchro. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, and to be able like I was thinking about this actually earlier today when I was making my notes about this. It's like it's nice to be able to talk about with obviously with Nikki cuz she's amazing, but then also just with us too like a a different iteration of Oz that's like not quite so I mean not even not quite so heavy completely not as heavy very different still has important themes which we'll get into but it was it was it was refreshing to go back to Oz in less of like a like a depressing depressing crushing way. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I was a little gunshy, not going to lie. You know, Nikki's publishers reached out to us to see if we were interested in covering this book. And Liz is like a through and through Wizard of Oz like obsessed fan. Okay. And pro obsessed fan. That's also Nikki girl for sure. So, she's just like trying to be cool like, "Hey, think about this." And I'm like, she knows I'm like really a little gunshy about Oz right now after reading the entire Wicked series. So I'm like, "hm, let me let me look." And then so she's like, "This is how many pages it is." I'm like, "Okay." And basically I was like, "Okay, fine." Like it's going to be different. It's might help me like reframe my thinking again and appreciate Oz. So And that's what it did. So good. I'm so glad we squeezed it in. Like literally the day that I was leaving for the Disney cruise that morning, we filmed it and it was so so great. So awesome. Well, it's like I've you know, we talked about this a little bit. um an interview with Nikki, but obviously I know a lot of you guys and me too got into her writing because of the Vicious Lost Boys series um and specifically the audio books and so did you listen to some of the audio book for this one or did you do all Okay, so tell us about it. So yeah, we'll talk about it cuz I was so curious. There's six or seven. I got to check. Six, seven. Oh no, my my 5-year-old says it all day now. Um, sorry guys. Sorry if I triggered the kids out there. I swear they just start going coming when they hear 67. Um, now I don't remember what I was saying. Oh, I was so curious with that many people casted and it not being what is it called? Like uh what kind of narration is it? Dramatic dramatized audio. It's not It's not a dramatized audio, which I don't know if I That's a different story for another time. Okay. It wasn't a dramatized audio. So, I was curious. Liz raves about the audiobook narrators for previous series and of course she was raving about them as well. So like okay I got to like dive into this immediately sucked in. Yeah. So I read this all like the physical book arc that we got sent ahead of time because the audiobook wasn't out when I read it yet. Um but I did pre-order the audio book. So it is sitting in my Audible. So, whenever I like, you know, read book two, like we'll get into that, but whenever I read book two, I'll probably do a refresher with the audio book because I feel like hers are just like unmatched. So, I'm excited to hear more details about that from you. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah. So, if you guys want to stick around for the deep dive into West of Wicked to find out what you're getting into um for this, the first 15 minutes will be spoilerfree. So, we will, you know, do our faves and fails. We'll give our spoiler-free reviews. Who might like reading this? who we'd suggest it for and then we will get into our deep dive portion. But before we do that, we just wanted to say thank you for being here. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day and your book to come and hang out with us. See what we had to say about the West of Wicked book and the series that's going to be coming out because this is part right now of a three-part series. So exciting. Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like to listen to your podcast, including YouTube. We are besties in the books podcast everywhere, Instagram and Tik Tok as well. And then if you want to join us on Fable for some virtual non-committal book club reads, go ahead and check us out on that app at besties and the book club. And just as a little treat to you guys who decide to stick around all the way until the end, we were lucky enough to get extra copies of this gorgeous sprayed edge hard coverver full color map of West of Wicked from Nikki St. C and her publisher. And so we're going to be giving a couple of them away. So Ashley over here, Vanna White, showing us all the goods. Um so yeah, stick around to the end and we'll make sure to give you all the details so that you can enter that. Let's just kick it off with our uh faves and fails of the week. Shall we do that? Let's do it. Let's jump on in. Okay. The water's fine. So, all right. I'll just start I'll just start with my fail and then move into fave because the fave is just like so funny. Okay. Well, I have a two-part fave, but it's just it's stupid and silly. My fail is that after being sick for basically a month, I feel like I like if I wasn't perpetually behind before. I feel like I'm just like the snowball from I mean, you know, owning a business and being sick for a month and then obviously like, you know, at this point I consider this like our my other business, our business. And so it's like being behind on my reading schedule and my planning and plotting schedule and like all that kind of stuff. I'm just like I just put here I guess I'm just perpetually behind forever. That's what I feel. Oh no. which it's like I feel like as adults in 2026 like we all feel that to a degree anyway, but I feel like right now it's like that times like 10,000 billion. And so I'm just like, "All right, it's cool. It's fine." Like, yeah, someday I'll be somewhat more organized. I don't know, maybe not, but I hope I hope to be someday. Like, do we just learn to live with it? That's such a frustrating feeling, too. It's overwhelming. It's panicky. So it's like, yeah, do we do we learn to live with it and not feel so overwhelmed by it and be and accepting like, hey, this just is the normal right now. Yeah. Just be behind because it's like that's the thing I think we just we our schedules are so overfilled that it's just like, you know, it's just not going to go away. I don't know. Grab another cup, try to fill it up. Well, it's hard because it's like I feel like if you're a creative person like you and me, we are not okay like accepting the fact that like life is basically paperwork and chores and routine. Like we need a creative outlet like to not go spiral off into insanity. And so it's like we have to prioritize those things for ourselves whether it be reading or podcasting or like doing whatever other kinds of things we want to do. Um, and so that makes the balance even more complicated sometimes, but it's worth it. But I just feel like right now I'm like, I mean, this week I crammed in When the Moon Hatched, which as you guys know is a 711 page book. So, you know, and that was part of my fave of the week because this was a reread. And holy cow, I had forgotten two major twists for one thing. Completely forgotten them. Yeah. Oh, good. So, how what a treat. It was great. I was like, "Yeah, learning it all over." You know, it's like you see those funny reels like if I got amnesia, I'd read Throne of Glass all over again. And that's how I felt. I was like, "I don't have amnesia. I just have ADHD and forget everything immediately." So, um it was quite a delight. So, I will say even though it was chaotic, binging When the Moon Hatch this week was a treat for sure because it's such a freaking good book. And we'll get into all that later. Yeah. Well, this is actually I think going up after those episodes. So, we have now recap into it. Yeah. When the Moon Hatched and probably Rights of No, Shield of Sparrows and then Rights of Starlings should be up too. But if not yet, if you know what they're coming and same thing with the When the Moon Hatched second book. So, we're doing all that in the preparation of the releases. So, if they're not on our channel yet, make sure you're subscribed again so that you don't miss out on those deep dives. But yeah, reading fa rereading fantasy originally, I thought like, oh, it's not gonna hit the same. It's gonna be a little bit boring and sloggy. No, no. I did write I did I keep calling the first one that. Sorry. I did Shield of Sparrows and When the Mood Hatch back toback and they were still such a treat and I loved them. Both same for me, too. Yeah. I I'm a very like visual person and so like literally when I This is going to sound make me sound weird, but maybe you guys can relate. I don't know. It's almost like if you picture the book as like a puzzle like a a intense high fantasy book like you know Shield of Sparrows or When the Moon Hatched. When the Moon Hatched is there's a lot of world building and stuff going on in there. Mhm. It's almost like let's say you have you know a thousand pieces to the puzzle. I would say after a first time reread I probably have about 60% of it filled in. And I'm not even and I'm not even fully aware that that's all that I have. You know what I mean? Until you go in and reread it and then you're like, "Oh." And then you can like piece together even more of that. And I would say after a second reread, I'm probably I don't know, maybe I'm being optimistic, but maybe around 90%. I would estimate that the third time you reread it, you're going to it'll it'll fully click all the way. Well, and once the whole series is out, too, I think, cuz we're not supposed to know everything yet. Yeah. But I mean, there's going to be even more and more and more and more. I know. It's just crazy. But it's like you don't realize how much you miss that first time. until you do the reread and then you're like, "Oh, okay. That's crazy." So, yeah. And then with these ones too, it's like because of the fact that we're covering them in preparation for the new ones, I now am I have a system that I finally have established with note takingaking on these big reads. And so that will be great moving forward as well, so that I won't have to do a complete reread on everything unless I, you know, really want to, unless we really want to. So, very exciting. Um, okay. So, the other fave of the week that I just have to tell you about, I haven't had a chance to have a girls night like with my sister and Rinda in ages because we've just been so busy. We finally got together and um, basically someone out in the wild said my least favorite phrase of all time to me, which is cool beans. I hate saying it's like makes me cringe so hard. I don't know why I hate it. I looked up its origins and apparently it got popular because of Full House. Did you know that? Oh, no. I had no idea the lore behind it. That's the lore. So, love Full House. Do not love Cool Beans. Okay. Um, but yeah, someone said it to me and it was so funny cuz my sister knows I hate it. So, like the second the person said it to me, she kind of like gently nudged me in the side and I kind of gave her like a side eye. Like, we knew what happened. It was like a thing. Yeah. And so then when we went back to her house just kind of like enjoy the evening and hang out together, we decided that we would start like asking everyone like what their least favorite like popular phrase is. Um and some of them were just so funny. I just have to share a couple of them um that we had gotten online. One of them was uh cooked to perfection. Oh well that's like gum is perfection. So I can appreciate that. But it's just like I just love how different as humans we are that for some reason it's like cooked per cooked to perfection is like the thing that throws you over the edge. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Cuz it just seems so benign. And then you have like um you know like my husband hates it when people say no worries to him. Oh no. Keep them away from me. Well that's what I said. That's what I said. I'm like I say stuff like that all the time. Um, Rinda, one of her least favorites is um when people say vibes. And I was like, "Oh no." Because that's all we say all day long. Even my husband was like, "Oh, that's your guys's favorite word." I was like, "I know. Sorry about it. I ain't going to change though." Yeah. So, uh, that was just a good time finding out all the phrases that just like made people's skin crawl. So maybe we'll post a a question box on our story asking you guys to tell us because um like pet peeve phrases. Yeah, for sure. Well, and then we were like trying to think of like, well, what are like the key phrases that like you love though? Oh, a lot. The I know messing them up. So that's fun. Yeah. Well, the first one that popped to mind for me was I was like, you know what? If I had to pick one, I'd have to give it to I'll see you then or I'll see you at another time. That's got to be like my favorite. Yeah. Especially cuz that's not like a common thing. It's a I love you, man reference, too. I'll see you then or I'll see you another time. Yeah. And it's just it's great. Everything about it. I mean, Full House did it. Why can't Paul Rudd do it? Of course he can. You can do anything you want. I think that they do. You know, it's just from It's like we have so many popular things like Yeah. from Friends, from Anchor Man, from I Love You, like all those different things that like have made it into the, you know, popular lexicon or whatever you want to call it. But yeah, it's pretty entertaining. So yeah, that was my fave of the week cuz now we have like a list going. So Oh, that's great. Love it. So fun. I know. So what about you? Okay, so fave and fail. I'll start with my least fave and I ain't going to go into it because we don't have a million hours. Um, I'll just say this guys. Okay, we rushed trading in our car and we didn't need to. Therefore, chaos ensued, mistakes were made, things happened and I'll deal with it. I like how you're like and I'll deal with it. I'll deal with it. Uh making the best out of it. It's I'm grateful like for whatever, but there were some safety features that were not in there that I just thought were and I was told there was and they're not. So, I'm dealing with it. Okay. My word of advice is, hey, come in with a laminated list or a list on on your notes of things that you can make sure you go over because when time gets down to it or when when it gets down to test driving, especially if it's a different brand car, you're going to forget everything that you needed, you know? Yeah. And sometimes the experts don't know [ __ ] and they lie or they think that they know and they don't. So, you need to go physically, manually go and check those things. Go check it. Hey, as a woman, stop minimizing myself. Stop being a people pleaser. Which I wouldn't normally call myself that, but I'm like, well, there's a lot of instances where I am doing that. So, you know, I think we all do it. It's like very deeply ingrained in us because when we are, you know, it's like we talked about it briefly before, but it's like, you know, when we are trying to be uh out in the world, not necessarily with the people that we know and who love us and who get us out, like I'm not going to try to please them. Yeah. No. Sorry guys, we don't care. It's Well, it's it's disguised as being polite, right, out in the world. Yeah. Well, it's like we try to be um you know, like let's say efficient or thorough, right? Like let's say we come in with our laminated list and we know that these are all the things that we want and require, whatever. Um you know, when a woman does that, oftentimes it's perceived as being like overly picky, you know, nitpicky, difficult. Um, you know, it's there's a negative connotation there. I think sometimes, like for me, I was trying to explain this to my husband. It's not necessarily that I care what the car salesman thinks about me. It's that I get really tired of having to like defend myself, even if you're not openly defending yourself because we have to exist like that all the time. Yeah. Does that make sense? It's it's it's not even intentional and it's just something that we I think how we just operate and move throughout the world you know because it makes it easy because it's a very complicated topic guys I'm sure you guys know but it's because we in situations such as these often times will choose the path of least resistance which looks like people pleasing path of least resistance because we know not just at the car dealership but at the world at large anytime that we decide to make ourselves bigger or quote unquote more difficult. That resistance can cause a lot of other problems and can make our lives a lot harder. Mhm. And that gets exhausting by the time you are around our age, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it was uh learning lessons that I didn't want to learn again at 38, but maybe I'll actually it'll click for me this time, you know. So, I just love that you texted me and you're like, I got to just make a list that has like, does the car have four wheels? Does it have two windshield wipers? Don't ask. I'm gonna go physically check. I'm going to be like Dwight in the office and he's like home inspecting. I'm going to be annoying like that because whatever. Call me annoying. Call me a [ __ ] Whatever. But like when I ask somebody point blade, does it have this? Oh yeah, of course it does. I'm like, yeah, right. Of course it does. It's 20 It's a 2023. Like, yeah, of course. I've had it on my last three cars since 2015. Of course it hasn't. Of course it doesn't though. So that's all the last thing I'll say about that. We can all learn maybe something from that conversation and clean. Don't minimize yourself. Go check it manually because nobody knows what they're talking about. We have found and if a guy doesn't he is just being efficient. So there's that. Yeah. It's a little bit freeing. It is you telling me that when you were talking me off the ledge or like standing with me on the ledge. I'll actually rephrase standing with me on the ledge and being like, you know what, you're valid, you know, validating my feelings and my and my crash out. So, appreciated that. My fave of the week, however, though, okay, is I like deep cleaned downstairs and rearranged all the furniture, which was like we were ready for like a reset, you know, and the our dog is coming up on two. So, we've been experimenting with her outside of the crate. So, she doesn't sleep in a crate at night anymore. She has a bed at the end of our bed. Not that she doesn't sneak into our bed all the time and we have to tell her to go back down to hers, but um and then eventually we'll be crate free for her, but we're getting her used to downstairs in the crate when we're not at home. So, we're still worried she's going to chew up stuff, you know. Not that she doesn't, but she doesn't have the opportunity. Not that she does chew up, but yeah, she doesn't have the opportunity to do that. So, um that's good. But, of course, it's like she's massive, so her crate is massive. So, trying to find a place in our small house for that is tricky. But I got to rearrange everything. It felt really good. And I got all the laundry done. I'd already done ours, but like all the other random like pillows and blankets and the girls laundry. So got it all done the same day. And so whoever told me, "Hey, do your laundry on a day that you're doing other house cleaning cuz then you won't forget about it." It actually works. So thank you so much for that suggestion cuz I've done it a couple times now and it does cuz I'm walking by it, you know? I'm seeing it. But if I just turn it on and then go downstairs and work on podcast stuff or something, out of sight, out of mind, baby. See you later. Or see you in three days when I have to re-wash you. Exactly. It was great. So that's a major win. I feel good going into the week and I feel ready. And now I don't have a million things I have to spread out throughout the week. I got most of it done yesterday. So nice. It's good. That does feel good. Feels good. Feels good. Feels great. Yep. Yeah. Did any Did any Alanis help you through? No, I'm weaning myself. So, I did I have I just I'm taking little hits every now and then cuz I mean I'm not supposed to do a lot of caffeine anyway. It's like Chandler smoking the cigarette out of the drawer, you know? That's exactly what I'm doing. Yeah, that I love that. I'm not like weeding myself completely cuz like give me a break. But like, you know, I'm not I I was mostly only drinking half a can. I think when you were here though, I was up to almost a full can. I I'm trying to do like half a can. So now I'm like at a third of a can maybe. You know what I mean? Like I took I think since I opened one I think on Friday and I think there's a little bit left. So is it as good and crispy? No. But it gives me like a little bit of energy at that 3 to 4:00 time and I'm like give me a break. I used to make second coffees and then I would feel gross. I don't know. Something about coffee like would make me feel gross the second cup later. The Alanis don't. The Alanis give me life. It's good. So, if I could live on a third, that's even better for me. So, okay. Yeah. And then I still get I still get the the hit. I still get the the vibes. Sorry. Um and yeah, there you go. I'm happy with that. I had to inquire. Yeah, since it's, you know, a core piece of our now. Yes, it is. And I do like the mini cans, but they need to make more. They need to make enough flavors. But also, I don't like the mini cans cuz there's something about that tall that tall boy that just it's all perfect. The hand feel the hand feel. It's the hand feel. It's the mouth feel. I won't put them in glasses cuz it's different. I do this with sparkling water cuz I love my Yeah. Like it's crispier coming from the aluminum can and I'm like, how can I get it even crispier than that? I bought one of those like sleeve the tall can sleeve things. It makes no difference. So, don't do it. Well, I like the Are you talking and then it feels weird on your mouth? Are you talking about the ones that just keep it cold? Yeah, corksicle I have. Okay. See, I have a Yeti coaster that I use for my Diet Cokes that I love. I'm obsessed with that thing. It will keep my Diet Coke cold forever. And I was thinking about getting one in the shape of the Alani as well. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I need to experiment more. Or maybe the Corksicle's like lip is too fat, so it kind of takes away the drinking experience for me. That must be I put it in there when I'm not drinking it. You know what? cuz you know it gets it the thing about Alani too once it's like a little bit warm it just doesn't satisfy me as much so you have to drink it kind of fast but not fast but like you know I'm a slow drinker so me too like I will drink a cold brew for like 4 hours my husband what are you doing like literally that's the difference too and Alani would probably take me hours if I'm drinking the whole thing for sure you know otherwise but now I'm like forcing myself to drink it quicker cuz I really like that it's it's a texture thing, but not I don't know what to call it. Well, you like feel like when it burns your throat. Yeah, that's the that's Yeah, it could be caffeine free, honestly. And I would Well, I would actually probably like that even better cuz I could drink a full one every day. I know. We're like, "Dear Alani type, can you please make your drinks but caffeine-free?" They're like, "Now we're just making soda basically, which is weird because you don't like soda." Soda, but that's what it would be. I think it's because they have just better flavors. Like they have such good flavors. It's a perfect crispy mouth feel. Listen, you guys know how we love a lot. You don't need to you don't need to explain it to me. But yeah, no, I will say the Yeti Colster does not affect the can at all. Like, okay. Yeah, it's pretty slim. We'll have to talk. We'll talk. We'll talk later. We don't need to keep them here for this. Yeah, cuz maybe mine is too thick. Yeah. So, these things are important to us. Okay. I mean, honestly, like I would say that it's unrelated to books, aside from the fact that I have had people DM me to ask me which culsters I use on my book account. So, it is somehow related very tangentially, but it is important. It is. It is. It is. I mean, come on. We just We're creatures of comfort. What can we say? Yeah. We know what we like. We're not picky. We know what we like. How about that? How about that? It's true. Yeah. Yeah. I remember like just to cycle back around, you know, we'll go full circle with this. I remember in my first women's studies class, that was one of the first things we did is we looked at a chart and it had like basically qualities or adjectives that meant the same thing that were synonymous, but one basically would have like a society negative connotation and one would have a society neutral or positive connotation and the split was very gendered. So, think about that next time because it just it makes sense because are we picky or are we just decisive perhaps? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Okay. So, should we give our spoilerfree reviews of West of Wicked since that's why people are here? Maybe. I don't know. Probably. Let's get into it now. Let's get into it. Okay. So, West of Wicked by Nikki St. pro. I gave a four star. Mhm. Um I gave a four star and I gave a two spice. And the reason why I say those together in the beginning is because of the reason why I gave this a four star was because of the fact that it was a two spice because I was expecting I mean after guys after reading the whole um Vicious Lost Boys and Devourer series like spin-off series I kind of had I had an expectation and this is a me problem because nowhere did anyone tell us that it would be the same. You know what I mean? It's so it's not like it was misrepresented at all. I just was expecting the level of spiciness that I had come to expect with those series and so I was a little bit like oh this was a lot less than I thought and so that's why I gave this four star. However, I will say that because of the fact that we know that this is a trilogy and you know going into future books I will be doing the audio as well. I will, it could be likely that it'll get bumped up to a five star once I read the whole trilogy and listen as like one entity because I did really thoroughly enjoy it. And um I think that for a like a romanty retelling, it was easy to digest and entertaining and a fun quick read, which is also I think what a lot of people have come to expect from Nikki Sro and she's ever even said herself. those are her favorite kinds of books to read. So that's why she writes them. So yeah. So four star two spice. What about you? Okay. So I don't love or I could take or leave spice for me. So it probably helped me because there's not too much of it. Too honestly too spice surprises me. But maybe like you said maybe I've just gotten used to it. So cuz it's not it's not a lot of frequency. Couple scenes not frequent for anybody wondering. Yeah. Um, so in the world of Oz, the world of dark romanty story retellings, this was a five star for me. I loved it. Especially what made it five stars and no spoilers. But the ending, the ending solidified that cuz, you know, kind of like, let's see where it goes. Super excited to see where it goes. Can't wait to go back. I'm so excited cuz I was like, wow, she's already releasing the second one later this year and now I'm like, oh, goody. which like it's always good, but you know it's surprising when it comes out that fast. So now I'm like I'm ready. I'm ready or ready. Good. East of E. No, East of East of Eden. No, East of Envy. East of Envy. East of Envy. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know when it comes out? I can look it up while you talk. Yeah. I'm kind of curious because I um was thinking that actually. I was I need I was like I need to get that on my pre-order list um on Audible for sure. East of Envy comes out November 3rd, 2026. So, we don't have to wait too long, guys. So, you know, you can read this now. Just read it now. It's so quick. It's so easy. It's so great. And yeah, who would it be good for, Liz? I mean, I think it would be great for anyone who I mean, you like romantisy, awesome. You like definitely like anything even somewhat related to Wizard of Oz. if you're into fairy tale retellings, like you know, I would say because I've been talking about this a lot, but yeah, any kind of fairy tale re retellings, which I know that there are some people who really good at that. Like I do want to give a shout out to like Emily McIntyre's um Never After series as well. Like if you like those probably will really like this, too. Um not quite as dark, a little bit more fantasy. So, yeah, I would say like, you know, if you're looking for to like kind of scratch that itch with like a um classic fairy tale, but you'd like it to contain more romance, then I feel like it would be especially good. And I would say anybody who would be curious of like what would, you know, some character development for someone like Dorothy look like, where could that story go and be taken with more focus on the characters in Wizard of Oz? And then if you're like me and you don't really care for a lot of spice, but you've read some other, you know, fairy tale retellings that are heavy in spice and you're like, I kind of want something a little bit different um and less spicy, then this book in particular out of the trilogy. Obviously, we don't know where it goes yet. But this one is great for those of you that can take or leave spice like me. Yeah. Give it a try. For sure. Yeah. Mhm. Okay. Well, should we get into our spoiler section? Spoilers.

Spoilers coming. Nothing to do with Wicked, though. This is nothing like Wicked. So, bear that in mind. The movies or the play or the books or anything. It's Wizard of Oz. So, there we go. And you guys, surprise surprise, I did the five sentence summary today. Yeah, you guys can't see my instrument. Okay, so here's the thing. Ashley was like, "You need to learn how to play the spoons." And I was like, "I don't know what I don't know what that means." So, she sent me a video of it and I was like, "I don't got time for that." But what was funny was the second she said, "You have to learn how to play the spoons." And I can't put I can't put this all in. You guys won't be able to see it on the screen because it's like a whole setup I've got over here. Um, but I will take a picture and then Ashley can insert it. But I thought she was talking about me playing a bunch of different like glasses full of water. Oh, with two spoons. Okay. Okay. I don't know what the spoons are. Oh, cuz you're going to do I got to I got to tap them with something. I'm not I'm not going to try to do that thing where you like play them with your hands and make them look like I did that on accident a couple weeks ago. Me and the girls were fascinated. It was so cool to try. It's very It's honestly very like um you know, I filled all these different sized glasses with all the different levels of water, you know, and I was kind of doing like a test run. I don't think I'm going to try to play any particular song cuz that would be really hard. And that made me think of Winston and I was like, "Oh, we got to get some bells in here." Yeah. Yes. Um but uh it was really like addicting. Like I was like sitting there in the kitchen. Yeah. I was like, "Okay, I got to stop. I have things to do." I love the commitment. I do. Mhm. Yeah. So I knew that would spark something in you. So And you know what? Now that now that I'm thinking about it, I was like, "No, it could be the electric guitar that you own." Could it be? or electric bass. Sorry. I just think that that wouldn't be like as fun because it's just like a bass. It would just be like, you know what I mean? I mean, the piano was pretty fun when I did that. Yeah. But I feel like I Oh, this is better. Yeah, cuz you can make all those different noises and stuff on the piano, too. You know, whoever might be new to us and is like, "What the hell are they even talking about? Welcome number one to the Crow fam. We are now indoctrinating you." But no, when we do five sentence summaries, we get motivation each for each sentence and we give a little musical sound. This time we switched roles for the first time ever. I wrote the summary and Liz will provide the instrument. That is why we are talking about instruments and I'm not a very like lady. So um I did what I could with what I had in my house. Me and I'm not a very sentency writing lady as you can see from that sentence I just created. So, I did the best that I could. Let's see how it goes. Let's see how it goes. This is going to be mediocre at best. Enjoy. Come here for mediocracy. Okay. And vibes. Ah, now I'm going to be so aware of how much we say vibes. Okay, great. That's okay. All right, let's go. And these also are much like Liz's sentences. I will say that in the way of not as eloquent as Liz, but they are runon sentences. So, don't judge me. They have to be. They're just a guideline. Okay, we're like pirates. Yeah, the story opens up much like the original Wizard of Oz, except we are given more character development and backstory for an aged up Dorothy, including her aunt M and uncle Henry accepting her as an orphan. Early on, Dorothy is whisked away in Kansas in the Kansas house and transported to Oz, and the house lands on the wicked witch of the east, but it doesn't kill her instantly. Instead, the threatened witch and Dorothy battle it out, and Dorothy bludgeons the witch. And when she exits the house, she is met with a grateful crowd. Oo, a little bit of a twist. One. Okay.

I'm trying to like Well, I'm sorry. I got like caught up in it cuz I was trying to see if I could do like like Somewhere Over the Rainbow, but it's like just going to be too hard. one.

Exciting. Great. Thanks. Motivation. I can't wait to hear the next one. It'll be organic every time. Yeah, it's great. Along the trip that Dorothy is suggested to take by the good witch to find the wizard to help her get home. She saves a dying mystery scarecrow man who has no memory of who he is but can help her navigate the trek where she gets to know a bit about Oz including dynamics between the witches versus the wizard of the great and terrible wars and the curses that plague Oz too. All right, let's see if I could do like a Ooh, I like that one. Ooh, it's like satisfying something to my backbone. Exactly. Like it's like once you get going, it's hard to stop. Yeah. Do this at home. I recommend it. Yeah, just fill up a bunch of glasses and freak your family out. What are you doing? Just I'm feeling the vibe vibe. Okay. Dorothy is overall developing as a character and growing some sort of feelings for the scarecrow and they have some spicy time. All the while we get multiple point of view chapters throughout the story of the tin woodsman who is a heartless henchman for the witch of the south. He's a heartless witch or henchman from No. Who's the Did Did you find out who the No, she doesn't She doesn't have a name. The witch of the West doesn't have a name. Oh, it's just the witch of the West. of the West. It is. Okay. North,southeast, West is hard for me. Okay. Yeah. who is a henchman for the witch of the west in hopes of freeing his imprisoned brother as well as points of views from Cleo, the escaped imprisoned girl from the that was the like ward of the witch that Dorothy first killed. Okay, that's one, two, three. Three. Three. Okay, the next one's a doozy.

There you go. I love it. Okay. I'm having way too much fun with these over here. I'm sorry. I just want to go forever, but like we can only keep you here till 4. Okay. Yeah. The travels come to a head when the Tin Man finds Dorothy and the Scarecrow, who he kills. Also, by the way, the Scarecrow's name is Rook. Sorry, I haven't mentioned that yet. And he takes Dorothy. The Tin Man takes Dorothy, who he was sent to capture alive and bring to that witch of the West. As everyone in the witch's castle is under a magical spell against their will to do her will to do her bidding, they all decide to come together and kill her with the water. Dorothy unknowingly but magically can create. But when they tried to kill her, she confesses that she is the one who handed her over to the uncle and aunt in Kansas. But she couldn't see past that vision annoying and annoyingly dies before more useful information is given. Ah, that was so crazy. Four. All right, we'll do another one of the ones like a chime.

Oh, that's nice, too. Yeah. All right. Four. The scarecrow Rook shows up alive but confesses that he is the wizard and stabs Dorothy in the ribs. Crazy. And then we get some epilogue where basically the new witches are introduced. Glenda was introduced previously before, but she comes back and Deli, I think, who wants to marry the wizard to secure more power, but instead are sent off to do the bidding. So, it's kind of like an epilog prologue Pixon one, right? It was like pre before. Yeah. And I think it was like a bonus scene technically. Yeah. Okay, there we go. So, just threw that in there. But yeah, guys. Whoa. So many twists and turns. Five. Great job, Ashley. All right, one more to sign off. Decent job. Decent job. Decent job to me, too. No, you're doing great. You're doing great, sweetie. The camera. All right. It's doing something to our brains. I know. It's honestly like quite pleasant. I was a little bit afraid that it would be jarring, but it's not, you know. No, no, no. It's like It's like, hey, people don't people pay like hundreds of dollars to go to services like that where they like make sounds with glasses stuff? Yeah. Like like this is our version of uh sound bowls. We're going to do a meditation now and it's just going to be me over here dinging things with spoons. Good luck. Yeah.

That'll be $100. Okay. I love it. It's so good. Oh, yeah. So, very twisty and turny. Yeah. Yeah. Things I I didn't see coming at all. Didn't see it coming. Didn't see it coming. So, I love that. So, okay. All right. Let's just kick it off with three tropes that you loved. What were they? Fairy tales reimagined. Hello. That's literally the number one thing. hidden identities. So, we have the scarecrow and the witch now. So, that was I didn't see either of those coming. Did you? Um the scarecrow? No, I did not see that coming at all. The Or do you mean the witch being the person who dropped Dorothy off in um Kansas? Is that what you mean? Yes. Yeah, I kind of saw that coming a little bit because I figured it was one of the witches because I was like, "Okay, Dorothy probably has some kind of powers and they were probably getting rid of her." And if you guys are aware of the Wizard of Oz lore, then you know, and even in Wicked also, then you know that Osma was the, you know, Queen of Oz who was hidden away as a child. And so I'm wondering if there's some kind of connection there. Yeah. Must be must be must be. That will help too rewrite it in my brain. Yeah. But I mean, wicked. We'll see because obviously like you know in the lore, Dorothy isn't the same person as Osma, so it would change the story. But that's what we're doing here. That's pretty cool. That's pretty fun. I love it. And then my last one is um Cursed World. You know, all the curses that are going on and stuff. I can't wait to find out more about that. Yeah. The blight upon the land, you know. Yes. Yeah. Um yeah, I had Secret Identity on there as well. Um I had Badass FMC because I feel like we are very used to the version of Dorothy that's, you know, how old is she in the book? 14, I think. And in the movie as well, if we're talking Wizard of Oz. And then in Wicked, she doesn't really have a character. She's not a character really, you know. So, um it was nice that she is like she just yeah, she has a personality and a lot of it is like pretty badass for encountering all this crazy stuff that she's dealing with. I feel like she's handling it like kind of remarkably well. Yeah. Yeah. Um so that's awesome. And then obviously we find out that she has powers too, which is probably why she got hidden away, I'd imagine. Um, and then you know I had to put this I just said specifically reimagining but about the men. So this I think is where Nikki St. Crow like really it's like her I don't know crowning it's the crowning jewel in a Nikki St. Crow reimagining. It's icing on the cake. It's the fact that she's taking those characters that like might not be the hottest like let's you know for example the Wizard of Oz. We're not talking wicked. Okay. So, we're not talking about Jonathan Bailey here. We're literally like talking about the the characters from 1920 1930. What was that? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think anyone's looking at the Tin Man like oo Smash. Okay. Smash. Yeah. Exactly. Um like maybe like cool, I'd be his friend, but that's it. So, yeah. I feel like, you know, that is her specialty. And so I love it when she turns these guys into what they're turning into. I'm like, I can't wait to see where this goes. It's great. Um, you know, so yeah, look up some character art. If you guys don't want spoilers, DM us and I'll send you some. Or you could go to Nikki St. Crow's page and she's got plenty on there, too. So, it's all awesome. Yeah. And then, do you have a trope that you disliked? Um, I just I was reaching its straws here, but it's like, okay, like I get why it's done. I wouldn't have it any other way because it's a retelling. But, you know, females in power are sucking. That sucks. Bummer. I know. Bummer. I struggle with that, too. Uh, but to see where it goes. you can't win because when there's females in power that suck then it's like oh can't we all just like like I don't want to say all get along because we don't need to get along but can we all just agree on the fact that like this is dumb and we can like have power and share it and like all be powerful right but then when it's like tyrannical men in charge then we hate that too because it's like uh of course we've got tyrannical men in charge who are ruining everything right it's like that's so typical ical. So, it's like there's really Yeah. Well, and also, do they suck? Cuz we're going to find out because hey, there was a reason behind all the stuff with Dorothy and she was trying to prevent something and then basically couldn't prevent it. So, we don't know. It'll be interesting to unfold. I'm very curious. Um, a trope I disliked I put was the yellow brick road being used or so the yellow brick road used to be like a I don't know like a stream of magic I guess. Yeah. Um and now it's bricked over by the wizard. So I just put here government control. So like that's what that is. So it's like and he's using it to control the electricity and stuff. Yeah. So that was very reminiscent of obviously like the original Wizard of Oz and then also you know the Wicked iteration as far as like that's a theme in fantasy in general but I feel like utilizing um the yellow brick road specifically um you know it was a trade route and wicked um that you know they had to go through all these lands and destroy to create. So, I felt like I liked that it was a call to that, but then at the same time, I did dislike it because we hate a a tyrannical ruler who's trying to control everything, obviously. Yep. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Did you have any micro tropes that you wrote down that you liked or disliked? Loving loving the magical objects. So, so far we have the mask, silver slippers, which were the original, in case you guys didn't know, ruby slippers were changed for the movie to ruby slippers. Yeah. And then there are some other ones in there. Oh, the the axe. So, it's magical in a way. Only he's supposed to be able to be able to wield it. That thing is crazy. The visualization like when he throws the axe at their heads like comes just seems like it's uh it's extra magical, you know? Yeah. It's very like think like Thor's hammer but like less crazy. Like not as crazy as that but like cool like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Actually, that's the other ones yet. That's what I put too. I put magical objects like the shoes. That's what I put. I like the magical trinkets, you know, it's like we're collecting them as we move along. Yeah, it's great. Love it. Love some magical trinkets. Yeah. What was your favorite part? I said probably when we find out that it was the witch who brought her to Oz in the first place and that Dorothy has powers. Like that's just satisfying, you know? Yeah, definitely. What about you? Yep, that's what I put, too. And I also loved finding out that Scarecrow/Rook was the wizard the entire time and stabs her. Like I don't love her getting stabbed, but twist of events in a book. It's a good freaking twist. Yeah. Both of them back toback. We didn't even get to breathe. It was great. I loved it. It was like everything just like came down in the last like couple chapters. Like truly. Yeah. Like I literally audibly gasped and then texted Liz when he's like, "I'm the wizard stab. That's funny. It's great. It's great. Uh, what about your least favorite part? I I couldn't like think of any that stuck out to me, per se. What about you? I just I really had to grasp straws for this too when I was thinking about it because there was nothing that stood out to me that I just didn't like. Um, except for small town romance with Ed Edward the Dull Dud. That's what I I mean, yeah. Like, give me a break. Move on. Move on already. You don't like him either. Stop trying to make Edward happen. It ain't going to happen. It ain't going to happen. Yeah. Um, so that was the only thing I could think of like, but then at the same time, it's like you weren't really supposed to like him because she's not meant to be with him. It's supposed to represent her like, you know, her life in Kansas that she has never felt like she fits in with. You know, he's not a bad guy. He's just not the right guy. Yeah. But he was a dull dead and for that reason he gets the vote. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yep. What about your favorite character? Who do you think it is? I think it's the men. Tin Man and Scarecrow. I think you like Tin Man best. I do. Tin Man gets the gold star. Yeah. I'm sorry, but throw a bionic arm on a man and that's going to get him that's going to shoot him right to the top every time. I mean, the way he wields his axe is pretty good. It's pretty good if you ask me. So, there's something about like they don't call him the Tin Man very often. And I don't think they call him the tin woodsman. That's just it's a little bit more makes it better. Mhm. It's a good It's a good balance of the two. It's like a lumberjack with some tin abilities with a bionic arm. He's not made He's not made of tin like the tin. It's like he's literally a lumberjack with a bionic arm that wields this. I didn't love at first, but that's why you just got to see how the story unfolds. I didn't love like, okay, he's an addict. He's struggling with this oil, which is painted out to be drugs. But then you find out he has to or he'll literally freeze up, which was such a cool call out to like the oil can. Dude, I know. That's right. I forgot about that. Yeah, it's so true. Like he has to take it otherwise he'll literally like rust or freeze up or whatever. Cuz he has no heart. So he has no blood pumping oil or blood to everything. Oil. Blood. Yeah. So you need it. So like it then it's like okay, you know. Yeah. Um, so far it'd be Tin Man for me as my favorite because he's he's complex. He's struggling with some stuff, you know? So, that's always interesting to me. He's like he's got anti-hero vibes is what I wasn't into. Yeah, I wasn't into Rook the Scarecrow. Yeah. But now that we find out he's the wizard, I'm intrigued. So, he's a favorite character of mine because like, dude, that was crazy. That was a facade that he held up for a long time. So, I'm curious to see where that's going. I was like, I don't remember anything. Like, oh. And now I know why that you weren't including like the wizard on any of the like meme reels we were making and stuff cuz I hadn't finished it yet when you were making those. And I'm like, that's weird. But I was like, you know what? Maybe people will comment, "How about the wizard?" So, it's fine. We'll just keep it at them two. Oh, it's because one of them is the same. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, that was good. Sneaky. So, least favorite character. Okay. So sorry. It never happens, but it always happens with Toto. I usually Astric can't stand Toto. He like gets her into trouble. He's always like causing issues. I understand she likes her dog, but could she have given it to like one of the lollipop dudes and say, "Here, watch this on my travels." I don't know. Or like, "Stay in your basket, Toto. Eat your food. Like, stop. It always is causing a ruckus." However, Toto, for the first time in all of the Wizard of Oz like lores and retellings and everything, I actually ended up liking Toto at the end because he can communicate. Mhm. And talk to was it the Tin Man or Scarecrow he talks to at the end. So then you find out he's been talking they've been talking the whole time to each other. Dorothy doesn't know it yet. So I'm hoping Dorothy gets that ability too because then it's like oh and he was like a vicious little dog. He was like out hunting food and like crazy. Yeah. So, uh, as can terriers do. So, that was nice that it was like actually like made sense for that type of breed to like go in and muskrat around. So, I loved that. And so, now I like Toto. So, finally somebody gets me to like Toto. So, this was instead of just being an enemies to friends kind of story for you and Toto. It was It was It was beautiful. What about you? Um, I put Lacosta uh question mark because she just gives playing both sides energy. She gives Glenda energy but like in this version, you know what I mean? And so I'm concerned about her. Like I feel like she's going to do some backstabby thing and so she rubs me wrong. So that's why I put Lacosta question mark though cuz like to be determined. But at this time, if I had to pick someone who wasn't like, you know, just a bad person, um, then it would, although it's arguable that we don't really know who's actually bad and not bad in the story at all because who knows? But, um, that's who I would pick with the limited information we have at this time. Yeah, I'm curious. So, yeah, find out who the real villains are for sure. Mhm. So, did you have any quotes that stood out to you that you would like to share today? Okay. Okay. So, here's the thing. I found the quote that I literally forgot about and maybe I wouldn't have been so shocked by Rook/Scarecrow being the Wizard of Oz because I remember real I remember trying to remember that when I read it. I was like, "Okay, this is the moment." Okay, wait. He says, so this is right before Dorothy rec like rescued him. You get his point of view. Okay. The cornstalks part for her like a tide. She is a vision of light, prettier than expected. My heart thumps harder. I look up at her and I smile. And then it goes to like Dorothy. So at that point, I was like, "Oh, he must have been sent by somebody." But I literally forgot that that even happened cuz I would still be shocked that he was the wizard, but like some he was playing. I should have remembered that he definitely was hiding something. Well, yeah. If you don't have any memories, why would you expect anything? Yeah. Like he knew she was coming. Yeah. So then I was like, "Oh, so you guys that happens pretty early. we got like it's not foreshadowing, but like you know you could see him for a little bit of who he was and expect something from it. So then I totally forgot that that happened, but it made the twist even better. Yeah. No, that's cool. I love that you picked that out cuz I would have never noticed that. I don't think. Yeah. Cool. Yep. Um I like it when they're talking about the great and terrible war that happened in the past um you know between the witches and everybody. So the quote is, "Like most coups, it took just the right whisper at the right time." Oh yeah. So we're getting that political, you know, diversion, whatever, political intrigue and all that with this as well and examination, but just like on a very like um subtle level. Yeah. A little bit easier to digest than a series like Wicked. If you have to call yourself good, are you truly good? I have that one on here, too. Yep. Mhm. Everyone was desperate for a normal life, even if it was promised on a pile of ash.

All right, this is my last one. The most dangerous thing of all is a woman who thinks she is powerless. That was a good one. I have that one on mine, too. Yeah, I have one more, too. So, she's talking about um you know, Dolud Edward. That was his name, right? do Edward certificate says. Yeah. Right. Um and about how there was a girl back in Kansas named Rosemary who like had a crush on him and they were always kind of like a little bit like butting heads over this dull dud of Edward. And so the quote is, "Sometimes I thought about inviting Rosemary out to coffee so I could take her hand and tell her we didn't have to be enemies. That it was the world pitting us against each other, making us fight for scraps, as if marrying a man was our only chance at happiness in a future." Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, there's some good themes in here, guys. There is. There is. There is. Yeah. So, all right. How is the spice? We kind of already briefly talked about this. I would say for me, not enough. Especially if we're dealing with someone like uh the Tin Man, the Tin Whizman, but he's very tortured. And as I said before and Ashley was talking about, it's like he's an anti-hero. He has a lot of problems. Obviously, his whole entire motivation is to probably just stay alive long enough to rescue his brother, who the witch has been keeping hostage, who is sounds like he's going to be the lion, by the way. You I was going to ask you, do you think he's the lion? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Um, so I don't think he really cares about what happens to himself, you know? He's just kind of like, I care what happens to my brother. I want to save him, and I know I'm under this curse, whatever. I have to do this witch's bidding. Now she's gone. we might be able to see his character arc expand and grow now. Um, but yeah, well, I wonder if the witch is gone, do all the curses lift, you know, since she was the one that bestowed. I guess we'll find out. We'll see. I guess we'll find out. Um, but yeah, so I would have liked more spice with him for sure. Um, I thought him and Cleo were going to have something. Me too. Me too. But maybe not, you know. Maybe. Yeah. Or maybe later. If you've read other uh the Lost Boy series, you know that uh it's a why choose situation. So, we could end up with something like that too. Who knows? Yeah. Well, um so Low Spice I would have preferred more, but Low Spice you were completely content with. Yeah. Especially for a first book made sense to me. It was the amount that we had made sense for this. I think if it happened too frequently for me, it would have pulled me out of the story because I'm like, we got to get going. This is just the beginning, you know? Mhm. So, for first book, I think it's great. Yeah. And it was written well, too, the ones that we do get. So, I liked that. It wasn't cringey to me at all. So, obviously, you'll read sequels. Yes. I can't wait. I can't wait for the sequel. Nice. I can't wait to see what else happens. What's all these stories of the witches about? Is the Oz really evil? Is he not? What's going to happen? Yeah, totally. I'm excited, too. I feel like it's like, you know, Nikki's one of those authors that it's like if she writes it, I'll read it. like she's one of those. So, yeah. Hey. Yeah. I'll pre-order it on Audible. It'll pop up one day and I'll be like, "Oh, what a nice little treat when I notice it's in there." Super excited. Love it. So, I feel like, you know, this question of what makes this particular book stand out kind of goes handinhand with how it holds up in the Oz universe. I put here like now that we have our PhD in freaking Oz. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. So, what do you think? Like, does this book stand out as part of the, you know, gigantic world of like lore and iterations uh that have to do with, you know, the Wizard of Oz and Wicked? Like, how do like how do you feel like it fits? Were you happy with it? Yeah. For what I've consumed, this was a hole I was wanting to fill. You know, I want to know Dorothy's story. I want to have these characters more fleshed out other than like just they're on this trip and they meet the wizard and the wizard is a facade, you know? I want to know more about that. And I haven't read anything with it done this way yet for adults. So Dorothy's aged up. It's nice to have a more modern mentality and an aged up Dorothy. For sure. For sure. Um, yeah. You know, I'm I'm definitely one of those people who like I've always loved romance and I've always craved more romance in my fairy tales cuz like obviously like fairy tales have a lot of romance, but do they have spice? Usually not, right? And if you're looking at the classic versions and so I'm always like looking to scratch that itch. And so this for me is like just that's where we're going on this journey. I hope and I'm excited for it. I think that yeah, it like fills that need for sure um in a way that is unique because there are, you know, some spicy Oz retellings already out there. Um, but in my opinion, they're they're done in a way that's so different from the original uh Wizard of Oz story that it seems almost like a completely different story, which is okay and enjoyable and they have their place in the world, you know, the whole Oz world universe, but it's just different. So, this is almost like did you like Wizard of Oz, but wanted that to have more romance and spice in it and um still stay not true to the story, but true to like the general like outline of the story, which I really appreciated. Yes. Has the same outline. You're getting those cool call outs and nods without being like, okay, this is just the same story. You know, in the beginning, some people might feel that way because it opens up the same way, but all of them do, right? So to me, I enjoyed that because you're getting her internal monologue, Dorothy's internal monologue. So that's different than just seeing a young naive girl on a farm, you know? Yeah, totally. Um, more agency, too. Like she's making a lot more decisions for herself and Yeah. Like she's just more of a character instead of just being like literally blown along down this path, you know, um, and guided by all these other figures. It's like she's making her own decisions, which is refreshing. Yes. Yeah, for sure. So, just a little quicky addition here on the Goodreads reviews. Right now, guys, this is pretty new still. So, if you, you know, read it and liked it, go give it a review. Right now, it's only got 1,475 ratings on Goodreads, and it gets an average of a 3.93. So, that's where we're at at this time. So, yeah, go read it and review it. It needs more reviews than that for sure. Yes, definitely. Definitely. Um, and then me for Audible, I check took a look at that. It has only 31 ratings so far, but it gets a 4.5. So, we have also Yeah. So, seven narrators. We have Amy Hall and Connor Grace. I think that's how you say it. Ellie Gos, Samantha Brettmore, Shawn Masters, Shane East, Stella Hunter. So Nikki had told us in the interview a couple of those are repeats from her Vicious Lost Boy series and so she immediately was like okay you're going to cast them but she wanted a larger cast so they added some newer voices to her. So it's great. I started with the physical read immediately sucked in because it's easy to visualize, right? She does a great job world building, but you're also it's a world that you're already familiar with. So, it's easy and you're not bogged down with all the details cuz you're there, you see it, I'm going. And then just because of time and also curiosity, I'm like, let me switch to the audio. And boy howdy, it was great. It was perfect. Like all the voices were perfect. It's like I'm sorry, but I know you guys are Shane East fans. cuz I know I am. So, just enjoy that little nugget. I'm sure that was great. Yeah. Yep. Good. That's good to know because like I said, I've had it sitting in my Audible and so when I do my reread and refresher, that will definitely be on the list. At the very least, you could do the audio and you have a great time. You know, if you don't have time to read the physical right now, give the audio a try. And on Audible, it has the read and listen, which I did for the final like last 10 chapters, I want to say. Oh, good. Finally. Finally. I love it. Me, too. I got in bed last night. I'm like, "Oh, this is perfect." Cuz I'm already listening to this amazing audio. I'm not going to stop now. That's hard for me once I find an once I switch if I switch to an audio book or I want to go back and forth. Once the if the audio is good, it's hard for me to stop. So, I love the read and listen option then because then it just follows along. I don't have to do nothing. It's great. The only thing Audible if you're listening, which they're not, but if they were, this is what you should do. Okay. This is my and maybe I'm doing it wrong but this is my thoughts because generally speaking most of the time I'm doing a lot of note takingaking especially on the like the bigger books you know and so um what I don't like is that so let's say you have it in your Kindle cuz I did this with when the moon hatched I have it in my Kindle and I have the audiobook version. It should link that so that when you're doing the read and listen feature on Audible, you can make your notes and you can highlight on that and it will transfer those to your Kindle as well. Like it should all be connected. Yeah, that's the next step. That's the next step because right now what I would have to do is pause the read and listen, go over to my Kindle version and add the highlight. I should be able to just do that right from the read and listen version. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Otherwise, it's top tier and it's something that we I feel like appre If you like subtitles, yeah, guys, there you go. It's literally perfection because it's like highlights every word as it's being spoken and as you're reading it with your eyes, it's like such a delight. It's very very um satisfying. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. All right. Well, do you have any other things that you wanted to add about West of Wicked before we move on to our smasher pass of the day? No, I'm just excited. I'm excited for the next one. I really am. I'm excited for you to finally be diving into the Nikki St. Crow universe. It's great over here. We're all having a good time. Okay. So, do you want me to go first with Smash or Pass or do you want to go first? Sure. Hit me with it. All right. So, I had to know if we're sticking with the theme of, you know, obviously the Tin Man and the Bionic Arm, does Bucky Barnes do it for you? Smash or pass? Who? You don't know who Bucky is? Bucky Barn. Bucky Barnes. When do I ever know anyone that you're talking about ever? Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier. The The Winter Soldier. My brain is short circuiting right now. I don't know what you're talking about. Okay, just do do a quick little Captain America. I don't know. You know, I don't know superheroes, Liz. I thought this was a Game of Thrones guy when I Googled it.

Uh, I don't know because I'm not seeing it in action. So, he's a superhero character. He literally looks like he stepped out of Game of Thrones. I mean, yeah, I think that that adds to his opinion. I mean, I got to know more context. a petition for Ashley to finally catch up on the Marvel universe so that she can join us all in the Bucky Barnes fandom because he is one of our favorite with the he's flipping someone off in this picture and I like that. I like that attitude. Okay, so I'm seeing an attitude. Oh, I like the black like makeup crow makeup on his face. He's a vibe for sure. Okay, I I trust you. Oh, I've seen that picture. Smash. Which picture? Uh, this one. This one. I'm like, which one? We must know. Show me the tree. Yeah, literally though. It's hard. Hang on. Okay, it's I'll I'll just save it to my desktop. I'll just make it my screen saver. It's fine. Hang on. Where'd it go? No, that's not it. Come on. Dang it. You're making it so hard for me. I'm going to lose interest. Okay.

the grand reveal. It's like keeping me in so much suspense. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Was it not worth the wait for you? No, but it's a it's a classic. Do this. Yeah, it's a classic. So, yeah. So, you're going with Smash. Smash. I think that will only become more of a Smash if you ever uh enter into the into that world. Fair. Yeah. I don't like how low his eyebrows are, but it's okay. I'll let it slide. You can't You can't have everything. You can't have everything. Exactly. We're willing to look past the lowbrow. Okay. Uh Liz, yes. I don't know if we've done this before, so tell me if we have. So, skipping in the Oz universe, f Mary kill, the traditional classic movie version of the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion. Okay. So, like the the oldie the oldie oldie version. Mhm. Okay. Okay. So, I'm definitely killing the lion cuz dude is so annoying. I can't take it. Sorry. Yeah. Um Yeah. It's like he's just in his voice, the singing. Yeah. A lot. Yeah. Um I probably would

I probably would f the Tin Man and then marry the Scarecrow. That seems That seems okay. I mean, it's not great, guys. Like, no. We're not good situations. We're doing the best we can with what we have to work with. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Ooh. Yeah. Straw. Yikes. Straw's itchy. Straw. Just for that reason, I can't smash that. But I can marry him and be in a platonic relationship. Yeah. So, exactly. Oh, smash the tin man. Even though I think he'd be able to be more useful like as a husband. I'll just go to work. Like, yeah. Go build stuff. But for the sake of my nether region, why not? So, let's kill the cowardly lion. Obviously, smash the tin man and marry the scarecrow. Okay, so we got the same answer. Yeah, we'll be curious to hear what you guys have to say about that. Do you guys have have a thing for uh the scarecrow? For the tin man. Dude, that makeup is extra scary, too, though. Like, cuz it's like his face into his collar. It's like extra freaky. So, but then I didn't have to marry him and look at him all the time. I could just want it done. Hey, maybe you could mar Hey hey, this is a crossover we all needed, right? Like you marry the scarecrow thinking like, well, this is as good as it's going to get. And then someday he transforms into the other hot version of him we know him to be. Yeah, sure. We'll make up the rules. We do whatever we want. Yeah. Okay. What do you guys think? Like sensory wise, I couldn't handle the hay. I really cannot stand. Hey, like yeah, I feel it. But at the same time, like he's completely immobilized. I mean, both of them are actually. I was going to say, so like if he starts getting too annoying, like you could just pull his stuffing out and then just like leave him in the living room to watch TV for a while. So vicious. Yikes. I mean, or like the tin man, you could just like not oil him. Like oil him and then he'd just be like frozen there for like, dude, I need a break. And then he's just frozen. Yeah. I think he's the most useful though, so that's why it's hard. Yeah. Like go go chop down a tree. Go get it done. Thanks. Yep. Yeah. But effing the scarecrow seems like a big problem. Big problem. Big problem. Yeah. So logistical. I'd never recover. Mhm. Yeah. So hey, there we go, guys. Well, thank you so much for listening to our West of Wicked Deep Dive. Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like to listen favorite podcasts, including YouTube. We're also on Instagram and Tik Tok in the books podcast everywhere. Don't go yet cuz we have a giveaway. We were sent an extra copy. So, we're doing a giveaway here on YouTube. Go ahead and comment who's your favorite Wizard of Oz character. Just let us know in the comments. Go ahead and send us a DM over on Instagram with a crow emoji letting us know that you want to enter the giveaway. Make sure you're following us on Instagram because we're doing a giveaway for the other book. So, one book winner here, one book winner on Instagram, and a different way to enter over there. That way, there's two options and everybody has a great time. And just in case you're listening to, it is one of the hard covers that does have the beautiful Emerald City sprayed edges. Um, so yeah, it's a great great choice. It's got map. Yeah, it is gorgeous. It is an absolutely gorgeous beautiful edition. So, good luck to you all out there. There'll be two winners on separate platforms. And thank you so much you guys for listening to us and making these things possible, making it possible for us to get someone like Nikki St. Cro here and other amazing authors. So, thank you guys and we'll see you next Tuesday. Bye.