The Midnight Readers Podcast

Hey, listeners. Happy Stay Week! If you know anything about us, it's probably that we're all Stays, as well as readers, and what better way to celebrate than by doing what readers do best: imagining eight incredibly talented men in a fictional world.

This week we're throwing books out the window (metaphorically) to answer one very important question: What kind of MMC would each member of Stray Kids be in a fictional novel?

Would Ba...

Hey readers~ We’re back this week to finish up The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova!

After 700 pages of dusty libraries, cryptic letters, suspicious academics and officials, and enough archival research to make the Library of Congress jealous, Dracula finally steps out of the shadows and reveals himself. The plans and mysteries of this delicious, decadently described novel are mostly left on the plate for us to poke at and qu...

Hey readers~ This week we’re going to Bulgaria and meeting a whole new host of characters in Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian. Paul and Helen have discovered even more evidence, with the help of Turgut Bora (who we now know is in a special guard designed to hunt down Dracula himself), and they’re following it all the way to the source.

They gain a new babysitter thanks to the Cold War politics of the time, as we...

Hey listeners! Happy Tuesday and welcome back to the long, winding tale of The Historian.

We join Helen and Paul again as they ride off to Budapest with the help of Helena’s aunt Eva. Poor Paul is put firmly into the spotlight when he finds out that Aunt Eva has volunteered him as the keynote speaker of a history conference at Helen’s alma mater, a situation that has brought the attention of the cordial but mysterious ...

This week, we're diving into part two of The Historian, where Paul and Helen collect yet another suspiciously convenient and male Dracula scholar. I mean seriously?!?!?!? Everyone keeps finding cursed books like it's the scavenger hunt from hell, and they're all having an absolutely terrible time.

Our duo are also digging through yet another archive, just to uncover exactly enough vampire lore to make a certain undead librarian ner...

Hey readers! This week we’re returning to the story of Dracula’s mysterious burial and the book that continues to haunt historians centuries later.

As the narrator and her father explore the countryside of the vast Eurasian continent, we slowly unfold the story of who Rossi was and how entrenched Paul became in his disappearance. We meet Helen - a breath of fresh air in the stuffy pages of the archive - and learn that ...

Hellloooo listeners~ Welcome to the world of dusty tomes and secret histories!

To round out our dark academia picks we’re picking up the story of the late medieval Vlad Țepeș, AKA Vlad the Impaler! Or at least, our historians do.

This week we begin the story with an unnamed narrator who unveils the story of her father and his mysterious experiences in graduate school. A student of history, Paul is thrust into the world of 1...

🎉100 episodes. One hundred. Triple digits. Somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, we've been allowed to keep microphones for this long.

To celebrate, we're doing what every bookish person secretly loves to do: judging things. Giving our opinions. Making it known. And fighting over it. Specifically, we're ranking some of the most popular book tropes from S-Tier masterpieces to F-Tier "Fuck you. I hope I never see you again....

Happy Pride Month, listeners! The curses of theater have come for us too - our audio got messed up this week (more than usual)! We knew we shouldn't have invoked the name of the Scottish play. Dammit. 😭We are so sorry, but we hope you enjoy the finale for If We Were Villains anyway.

Join us this week as the book comes to a dramatic close with a brother’s betrayal becoming a beloved’s sacrifice. Oliver’s tragic e...

Heyyy readers, Happy Tuesday. On this week’s episode we discuss Act 4 of If We Were Villains. Things heat up as Oliver is faced with his feelings right after discovering a revealing clue in the castle. Colbourne said the case was closed, so why is he sneaking around the school grounds?

Plus, James breaks Oliver’s nose and Oliver takes a trip to Dr. Alexander, right before a sudden tragedy befalls the friend group. Will...

Hey readers, we’re back with another episode of the If We Were Villains deep dive. Between the theatrical performances and borderline concerning level of Shakespearean recitations between friends, our acting troupe is used to dedicating themselves to their roles.

But now, the lines are truly beginning to blur. What happens when James shows up at Oliver’s door over Thanksgiving break? Relationships are straining, with M...

Hey readers! This week, there’s trouble brewing at Dellecher Classic Conservatory...And our theater troupe is embroiled in some serious drama.

Richard has taken to harassing James and Meredith on stage and he seems to be getting away with it. Oliver, who is beginning to recognize he cares deeply about both of them, is thrown into the line of fire despite his belief that he’s powerless to do anything to protect them. Pl...

Hey readers! We’re excited to continue our dark academia theme this week with the first episode of If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio! It’s a completely different vibe this time around - and we’re wondering how this is going to play out just as much as the characters.

This week we’re introducing the main characters and starting out with a bang. Why is Oliver in jail and did he really do it? Who will meet thei...

Spoiler warnings below!

Hey readers~ What do we love about our beloved fantasy female main characters? What do we hate? Are there tropes that we love to see every time, or that turn us away immediately? We wanted to talk about some of our favorite MCs (mostly in the Maasverse) from the past seasons and alike.

As we prepare ourselves for the new ACOTAR novel, we’ve been reflecting a lot on the book women we love and what the...

We’re back this week for the finale of Blood Over Bright Haven with an emotional rollercoaster of a finish! After the shocking revelations of the previous chapters, Sciona comes up with her final plan to truly stick it to the stuffy mages in the Magistry.

But how does this end? We don’t want to spoil it here but we were left totally wanting more. Sciona truly shocked us all at the end and we had so many feelings about ...

Hey readers~ This week we’re getting into the nitty gritty of some more morality struggles through the lens of Sciona in Blood Over Bright Haven. Now that Sciona has faced the worst of herself (and Tiran), how will she grow from here?

Or… will she? Sciona’s character is going to have to make some difficult decisions, all while she’s dealing with the trials of being a woman in STEM.

In this episode we disc...

Hey readers! This week the stakes are already rising high for Sciona and Thomil in Tiran. Blood Over Bright Haven has blown us away with its unique magic system and storytelling - but now the characters are taking center stage and our hearts are heavy with anticipation and emotion.

We get into it this week while discussing Tiranish belief systems - maybe we were a little harsh on Brittany (and Sciona)? You be the judge. We love a ...

Hey readers~ We’re back with a bang! This week we dig into the first section of M. L. Wang’s amazing fantasy book Blood Over Bright Haven, a fun, lore-heavy dark academia novel packed with magic and feminism.

Sciona Freynan is about to prove everyone wrong by being the first woman mage to pass the university exam and become an Highmage - but not without any pushback. The other highmages are not exactly happy to have a ...

📕💀🕯️Hey, readers - this week we’re taking some time to discuss our upcoming season of standalones only. Instead of choosing a full series this time around, each of us have chosen a book to review and discuss. We ended up with a dark academia vibe, which we are not upset about at all.

Join us to discuss our choices for the upcoming season: Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang, If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio, and The Histo...