In this episode of The Book House podcast, Liz Alterman chats with Amanda Casile whose debut novel, Broken Trail, comes out December 9, 2025. Amanda writes speculative horror in both long and short form. Her words have appeared in publications like Quill and Crow, Bag of Bones Press, Hungry Shadow, and Eerie River Press.

Amanda lives in the New Jersey suburbs with her husband and two daughters. When she isn’t writing you can often find her wandering the woods looking for ghosts, which is exactly what inspired Broken Trail.

In the novel, a young mother finds herself and her children trapped in a forest full of malevolent spirits and must find the  ...