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

"You're too weak to be my Luna." Those were the words that shattered Erin Arckwight's world. Rejected publicly by her mate - the Alpha of her own pack - she did what any broken wolf would do. She ran straight into the Forbidden Forest, the one place most wolves never venture into. But what most people do not know is that the Forbidden Forest doesn't break you. It remakes you. When Erin descends into the feral state that all werewolves fear, she doesn't lose herself. Instead, she awakens an ancient power that's been sleeping in her bloodline for three thousand years. And she's not alone. Kade Thornhart, the scarred and dangerous leader of the feral pack, doesn't trust the stubborn, sarcastic girl who stumbles into his territory. But he can't deny the fire in her amber eyes or the way his wolf claims her as his. She was rejected by an Alpha. Now she'll be claimed by something far more dangerous.

“Oh God…” she moaned, arching into him as his lips branded a trail along her collarbone. She fumbled with his buttons, tearing open the last of them. Her hands caressed the expanse of his bare chest, every inch as firm and sculpted as she'd fantasized since that absurd, embarrassing moment he’d walked in on her naked on her very first day in Terra Lucida. His abs twitched beneath her fingers, taut and hot to the touch, like he was barely holding himself back. Elias let out a shuddering breath as his lips grazed her shoulder, trailing slowly down. He pulled the thin straps of her nightdress down, kissing each newly revealed inch of skin. Trapped in a strange world where people ride carriages instead of Ubers. Lyra Beckham is horrified to learn she is the spitting image of a missing (possibly dead) woman named Lirae - who also happens to be the secret lover of a dangerously brooding prince named Elias. But things get messier when Lyra discovers Elias was the main suspect in Lirae's mysterious disappearance. She desperately plans to find a way back to her own earth before she ends up 'missing' too. Elias proposes that Lira pretend to be Lirae long enough for him to uncover what really happened. In return, he will help her find her way back home. Sounds simple right? But then, they had to fake an engagement that was quickly starting to become real. But when they stumble upon the truth, they realise that the only way out... is together.

“Cassie.” Everything around me froze. I stared at him without blinking for a second. “Cassie?” I repeated back to him. “The woman you brought into our house and claimed she was a distant cousin?” That was the moment I knew my marriage was over. Chloe Stone thought she had a perfect life, with a husband she loved and a future she had dreamed of since she was a child. But on the night of their fifth wedding anniversary, one text changed her life. Her husband was having an affair with another woman. Devastated, she walks away from her marriage with nothing but a suitcase and her pride. She leaves and tries to heal but it is difficult under the roof of a bitter father. Chloe lands a job in a powerful firm and comes face to face with Alex Blackwood, her ex-husband’s college rival, a powerful billionaire CEO with a guarded heart, raising a child on his own. Can two hearts shattered by their pasts, find love in the most unexpected second chance?

Eureka was forced into a marriage with Raymond Blackwood, the CEO who never wanted her. Lies, betrayal, and a broken heart sent her running.   Years later, she returns successful, with a teenage boy Raymond doesn’t even know exist, and the quest to find her daughter because she gave birth to twins, but one was stolen. When fate brings them together again, the truth behind their broken marriage starts to surface.   Can Raymond fix the damage he caused, or is it too late for forgiveness and love?

"He's a ruthless Demon, father! no one wants to breathe the same air as him let alone marrying him, I can't!" Kiara's lips trembled terribly as tears streamed down her cheeks. "Funny how you think you have a choice," Alpha Ezra chuckled dryly, ignoring the bitter tears of his daughter as he continued. "No one wants you Kiara, not even your fated mate, that's because you are wolfless and as such, useless, Hyde is your only ticket out of shame, we could only hope that he doesn't reject you too." *** Rejected by her true mate and ridiculed by the entire pack for being wolfless, Kiara was forced into the hands of the ruthless king Hyde in a cold marriage. Hyde Montero is a nightmare, They call him the Demon King because everyone believed he had no soul, he was fright itself. his eyes held coldness that no heat can melt. Everything you'd hear in a mystical horror story. But only one woman held the key that'd draw a gleam of light to his dark soul. Could that woman be Kiara?

Cameron Donnelly, a dashing young werewolf Alpha turned to a vampire at an early age to escape death and ensure the survival of his pack, The Crescent Moon Pack. Davina Pierce, a beauty to behold, running away from her dark saddening past with a lot of secrets and pain. All he wants is to rid his pack of this ancient curse stealing their lives, and causing mayhem. All she wishes for is to forget her true identity and the path she's destined for. Cameron wishes never to find his destined mate, and she couldn't agree less that her love was a complete waste of time. He lives a life always combing for answers while she seeks one of a normal, less interesting tale. What happens when something far greater than any of them has another plan that's quite different from what they have in mind? She's written in his destiny and he's fated to hers. What happens to these two opposite lives, when he discovers that she's the one who holds the answer to his curse and he's the past she desperately wants to avoid? ***EDITING currently in Progress***

Penelope Fox was raised in the Supernatural Academy and thought that she would be the next superstar celebrity. She didn't realize she was getting groomed to be sold as a breeder. Gamma Black of the Moon Stone Pack purchases Penelope intending to put her in his strip club/brothel. Thrusted into a world that only wants her for her body, Penelope has to navigate how to survive when she's still a virgin and has an innocent mind so she doesn't know how to do the things expected of her. No one anticipated that Alpha Stone would want her too.

Aria Hale spent her entire life believing the Moon Goddess created someone just for her. Someone who would see her. Choose her. Love her. She didn’t expect her fated mate to be Alpha Blake Thorn—the golden boy of the pack… or that he would reject her in front of everyone on her eighteenth birthday. Humiliated, heartbroken, and stripped of her place in the pack, Aria runs into the Forbidden Woods, praying for the pain to stop. But instead of death, she finds something far more dangerous: The Dark King. Erevan is ancient, feared, and impossibly powerful. To the world he is a myth. To Aria, he is the first person who looks at her like she is worth the world. And when she collapses in his arms, he does the unthinkable— He claims her as his mate. In the Dark Realm, Aria begins to unlock abilities she never knew she had. Abilities that were never meant to exist in the mortal world. Abilities that could destroy everything she once called home. When she returns to her old pack, Alpha Blake realizes the awful truth: Rejecting her was the biggest mistake of his life. But it’s too late. Aria is no longer the girl who begged for love. She is the mate of a king. Chosen. Claimed. Unstoppable. And she will never kneel again. A rejected-mate romance filled with betrayal, power, jealousy, possessive love, and a heroine who rises from broken to legendary.

Darlene was a rejected and bullied Omega, until the moon goddess hears her cries and blesses her with a strong and powerful Alpha, Conri.Three years she's been trying her best to please him and he's been caring for her in return until a beautiful and strong Luna shows up a week ago and suddenly, Darlene becomes a worthless piece of trash.He rejects her knowing that the consequences would lead to her being banished and exiled, and he proposes to the Luna.Darlene is shattered, she's carrying their unborn baby, the Alpha's heir but she decides to keep it a secret.Travelling far away, she stumbles upon an icy cold Lycan King, he's the definition of masculine beauty and strength. He's a billionaire CEO and he's in need of a contract wife.With her baby on the way it's a plus, she's in need of money and the Billionaire CEO is offering her a mouth watering sum. She accepts to be his pretend wife for three years. When she delivers she finds out they're triplets, now fate brings Alpha Conri back into her life, he finds out that she's different from the girl he used to toss around and she has a new man and unknown to him, her three babies are His. Alpha Conri is jealous and he wants her back, he's on his knees and he wants a second chance, who would she pick?

The night Araya was born, the Moon refused her. Marked as wolfless, mocked and forgotten, she grew up as prey in her own pack. Even her fated mate broke the bond with a smirk and left her bleeding at the border — for rogues to finish. But they forgot one thing: Ash remembers. And so does the throne buried beneath it. The forest did not devour her. It bowed. The flame did not die. It waited. Until, in the silence between heartbeats, something older than gods whispered: “She is not blessed. She is not chosen. She is the reckoning the moon tried to silence.” Now Araya walks again — no longer mortal, no longer meek. She is Hollow-Blood reborn, daughter of the fire that swallowed fate, heir to a throne no god dares name. And fate has bound her to Dorian—Azrien—the exiled god chained to shadow and ruin. He expected to crave nothing but vengeance. Until her. Araya is the mate his immortal soul demands, the salvation he denies, and the spark that could either set him free… or burn the world to ash. But enemies stir in silence. Adira, the Luna who would claim the Alpha prince at any cost, forges a pact with a creature older than gods, a monster chained in rot and darkness. The price she pays will rip fate itself open. Betrayals. Forbidden desire. Gods who bleed. Wolves who kneel. And at the heart of it, one truth no prophecy can silence: The gods will end. She will not. And the last prophecy carved into stone whispers: “The Flame That Walks Returns. Let the gods burn first.”