The Ezra Klein Show Reading List: Books Recommended By Guests On The Podcast (part 1 Of 3)

Astrid, a strong-willed and determined young woman, is forced to return to her pack after a decade away. She has encountered animosity and bitterness, especially from her father, the alpha of the pack. Astrid has a hard time adjusting to her new life in the pack. She meets Kaidën, a mysterious and brooding person who seems to be hiding secrets, and she gets to see her childhood friend Evelyn again. Kaidën's mate, Xylara, is presented as a stunning but ruthless and cunning person. Under the full moon, Astrid and Kaidën have a tense but fascinating encounter. Astrid starts to suspect Kaidën is involved in the weird happenings in the pack. Astrid is left feeling shaken by her encounter with Kaidën. She meets Alpha Eric, her arranged mate, and is repulsed by his behavior. When Kaidën steps in, Astrid is drawn to him. Xylara's hostility toward Astrid becomes more and more obvious. When Xylara tries to suffocate her while she is sleeping, Astrid learns of her true motivations. Astrid also finds Lucas, a pack member, tied up and gagged. Astrid is warned to keep away by Kaidën, who is attempting to shield her from himself. Xylara's evil character is further revealed as Astrid starts to solve the pack's mysteries.

"Help!" she screamed, despite knowing it was hopeless. "Please save me!" "There will be no help for you, Sylvia Browne." His black eyes were filled with hatred as he looked down at her. "You're mine." "What do you intend to do with me?" She asked, quivering with fright. Xavier smiled menacingly at her. “Everything. Everything I've wanted to do to you. In Private." ************************* The perfect wedding. The perfect husband. The perfect dress. Everything was going according to Sylvia's plan. She was finally having her dream wedding with Arnold, a powerful billionaire in the country. But she did not plan to meet her husband's arch-enemy and rival. She surely did not intend to be abducted on her wedding day. Xavier was angry when he discovered that the man who had destroyed his happiness was getting married. Filled with the desire for revenge, he abducted the bride, Sylvia. He had only two intentions: ruin the wedding and take the girl for his revenge plot. But when he looked into her eyes, he felt different. He wasn't supposed to desire her. He wasn't supposed to want her in his bed. But he did. And Xavier got anything he desired.

Naomi Catherine devoted ten years of her life to Liam Claude, sacrificing her dreams, dignity, and heart to build his fame—only to be cast aside like she was nothing. Betrayed, humiliated, and left with nowhere to turn, she believed she had reached the lowest point of her life. Until her stepfather sold her to Lucius Ravenwood. A ruthless and enigmatic CEO, Lucius had no interest in love—only in securing a wife to silence his family’s relentless demands. Catherine needed an escape, a way to reclaim the life that had been stolen from her. The arrangement was simple: one year, no emotions, no complications. But from the moment their worlds collided, the boundaries blurred. Beneath Lucius’s icy exterior lay secrets as dark as her own, and Catherine soon realized that escaping her past wouldn’t be as easy as signing a contract. When old betrayals resurface and past lovers return with dangerous intentions, Catherine and Lucius find themselves trapped in a battle far more treacherous than they had ever anticipated. What began as a cold transaction turns into a struggle for control, survival, and something neither of them expected—longing. Because love was never part of the deal. But now? It might be their only chance at salvation. A high-stakes romance brimming with passion, power, and deception—where the line between love and obsession is razor-thin, and surrendering to the wrong desire could mean losing everything.

“You don’t know just how long I’ve been waiting to have you…” My breathing accelerated. “What do you mean?” William moved so fast I could barely register it until he backed me up against a wall. His face was so close to mine that it was making my head spin. His hand found the hem of my dress and he started to pull it up. “Why don’t I just show you instead?” When Eliana Brown walks into her boyfriend of five years cheating on her, she doesn’t know whether to feel sad or relieved because she will finally be breaking up with the man who was living off of her. She encounters a series of bad events that result in her breaking down in front of the cold, unfeeling billionaire, Will Caddel. William Caddel has watched Eliana for longer than she knows. When he sees her relationship falling apart, he uses it as the perfect opportunity to reel her into his life and keep her there for as long as possible. She’s too young for him but he has never been the kind of man to care about the rules.

She gave them her loyalty. They repaid her with betrayal. Alaina was the cherished Luna of Moonridge Pack—respected, radiant, and deeply in love with her mate. Until the night of their anniversary, when a single video shattered her world. Her best friend. Her mate. A secret affair. A pregnancy. A public humiliation too cruel to be real. Stripped of her title and exiled from her pack, Alaina must navigate a world that sees her as nothing but broken and barren. But beneath the ashes of her old life smolders a new strength, fierce, vengeful, and waiting to rise. And when she crosses paths with a dangerous Alpha who sees her not as weak but as a challenge… the game of power, passion, and revenge begins. Perfect for fans of fierce heroines, forbidden bonds, and slow-burning revenge, this is a story where a Luna doesn’t break, instead she transforms.

To pay for the sins committed by Luisa Duarte against his family, Edmund Stark approaches her sister, Isabella, with a hidden agenda. He traps her into a forced marriage contract, but things don’t quite go as he planned. Will they be able to fix their differences and enjoy their marriage or would they end up getting a divorce? ~ “I told you before, you’re mine! You’ll marry me and bear my children and you’ll be my property until the day one of us dies!” He growled, running out of patience. “Am I to be your possession, your prisoner?” She glared at him with all her might. “Call it as you wish! You have nowhere to escape to!” He declared before pulling her into his lap, holding her tightly in his arms. He crashed his lips against hers, forcing his tongue in her mouth. Against her will, her body loosened in response, she lost the ability to breathe. She could not hear, she could not see, she could not feel anything else, except Edmund taking her mouth like a drowning man in need of oxygen. ‘Isabella is fucking mine! My woman! Nothing is going to change that!’

“How dare you touch my woman?!” Everyone gasped at Nathaniel’s words. My prosecutors released me and I stood frozen on the spot as I glared at my Savior. The man who I had come to know to be my mate… was in fact the Alpha of my Pack— Alpha Nathaniel Dark wood… ______ Riya is a young orphan mistreated and bullied by her stepmother and step-sister. Things worsen when her stepmother announces that she has been sold to an old merchant to be his bride. In a fit to seize her life, she makes a run for it and runs into her fated mate— Alpha Nathaniel— who saves her from the wicked clutches of her abusive family. Now Riya must prove herself worthy of being the Luna of the pack through trials and deceptions and obstacles set for her by her jealous step-sister and dark witches seeking to destroy the pack. Will Riya succeed in proving herself worthy of being Luna or will her sister and the dark forces defeat her in the end?

Marra Wheaton is the youngest of triplets, and her father hates her because she is female. Her father beats her for anything and everything she does, and her brothers help her along with her best friend and the best friend’s parents. Marra meets her soulmate and live starts to become better. Competed Story

Alina believed that Alpha Caleb was her true mate, but as secrets unravel and the truth comes to light, she discovers that she is merely a pawn in a game of deceit and manipulation. Her dreams shatter when she learns that she was never meant to be Caleb's mate but merely a substitute for his deceased wife. Betrayed by the one she trusted the most, Alina attempts to escape the pack and seek freedom. But as she runs away, Alina's path collides with Prince Alaric, her true mate. Haunted by past betrayals, she struggles to trust him, even if they are fated to be together. Alaric, a royal werewolf prince, had tirelessly searched for his mate, but to no avail. Attending a banquet at Caleb's pack, he unexpectedly finds her, but she is hurt and broken. Despite the odds, Alaric vows to heal her wounds and win her trust, determined to show her the love and devotion she deserves. Will Alina open her heart to the one who has been searching for her all along?

It was cold dark and lonely, she had brought the light, and for that reason, he would keep her, whatever it takes. On the day she is supposed to be married to her beloved, she is suddenly kidnapped by the most dangerous man in the country. He forces himself on her and imposes a marriage on her with a threat to kill the man she loves, and for that reason, she despised him to no end. He is the ruthless Don of the mafia world, he rules over the city and the country itself, not even the law can get to him. He kidnaps her on the day she is to be married to someone else and forcefully takes her to posses her so she could only belong to him and him alone. Excerpt: "You are mine," She shuddered as he took a threatening step towards her trapping her between himself and the wall behind, "Mine and no one else's, and the day you dare glance at another man with affection I will destroy him along with anything and everything he cares about, and if I have to annihilate the whole city even the whole country just to destroy him then I will gladly do so, and you will remain in the middle of it all with me and no one else." From trying to run away to hopelessly falling in love with the mafia lord who'd stolen her from another.