Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： A New Book You'll Absolutely Love

00:00:00.000 saying how you feel out loud is terrifying but that's what hinge's new free audiobook

00:00:07.140 no ordinary love is all about it's a collection of real love stories about five couples that met

00:00:15.200 on hinge the stories are written and read by temby dinton hurst nicola dinan curtis garner

00:00:20.700 raven smith and rufy thorpe i hunter harris wrote and read the forward the audiobook's out now give

00:00:27.940 it a listen. Hey y'all, Jo here. I know I haven't done a Sunday Nice Things in a while because I've

00:00:41.520 been a little busy, just a little bit. But I'm coming at you today not with a podcast that I

00:00:47.700 think you'll love, but with a book recommendation. Yes, I adore this book and I know that you guys

00:00:54.080 will too. So I just decided to do a little book report on it. I spent all day yesterday with the

00:01:00.360 author, my friend Jenny Herrera. The book is Siren Says. You've got to listen to this quote

00:01:06.440 from the incredible Diana Gabaldon of Outlander. This is the quote that's on the cover of this

00:01:12.540 book. Mysterious, beautiful, and enchanting in the true and sinister sense of the word.

00:01:19.460 you have been warned this book has magic it has mythology it has fantasy and sparkle and very

00:01:28.040 cool potions made out of plants if you loved practical magic which i do and you want something

00:01:33.680 to read before the new movie comes out siren says is the book for you i'm going to read you a little

00:01:38.540 bit of the synopsis and then i'm going to let jenny explain it herself we actually did this

00:01:42.500 on the car ride home from the philly book crawl yesterday which was a rip roaring success jenny

00:01:48.740 and I made five stops together at independent bookstores all over the city. And look, I just,

00:01:55.760 I love seeing people come together around books. I do. It is my great passion in life. And I was

00:02:00.500 so happy to see literally thousands of people crowding into these independent bookstores

00:02:05.580 starting at 10 a.m. yesterday. It was pure magic, pure magic, just like this book, just like Siren

00:02:11.460 Says. All right, I'm going to read you a little bit about it, and then I'm going to turn it over

00:02:14.380 to Jenny. 25-year-old Raven Wynne knows that the ancient plant magic running through her veins

00:02:21.120 brings nothing but destruction. It doomed her Welsh ancestors. It killed her mother.

00:02:27.080 It's the reason she's now bound by a painful curse. Desperate to tame the power she never 0.72

00:02:33.680 wanted, Raven makes a pact. She'll capture a spirit and grant her aunt's secret wish.

00:02:39.980 This book is a yummy, yummy, yummy escape into the world of Celtic spirits and botanical magic.

00:02:45.980 You're going to love it.

00:02:47.140 Here's my chat with Jenny from 676.

00:02:49.420 And if there's a little glitch in the audio, it's because we were trying to figure out how to switch lanes.

00:02:55.240 Oh, hey, Jenny.

00:02:56.700 Hey, Joe.

00:02:58.120 All right, we're in a car right now, driving back from the, we did the after party.

00:03:02.640 We did the after party for the Philly Book Crawl, which was amazing.

00:03:07.140 It was so good.

00:03:08.200 It was so good.

00:03:08.740 it was so good now we've been friends for a long time we share jenny's agent was my editor for how

00:03:17.160 to be married if you can believe that which guys was 11 damn years ago and when we were both

00:03:25.440 pregnant and living in philadelphia she was like you guys should hang out you're both pregnant and 0.95

00:03:29.780 you write books and i kind of felt like it was like how sometimes you try to set your two gay 0.58

00:03:33.500 friends up you're like oh you're gay and you're gay you'll be best friends but this one worked

00:03:40.580 out and we've been author friends and friend friends ever since and Jenny's book just came 0.75

00:03:45.520 out this week I fucking love it so much because you've done you've done like a real what I think

00:03:51.460 is a 180 your first book was a girl an amazing thriller I love it but this this is like full on 0.91

00:03:58.400 magic I compare it to practical magic a lot and if you're fans of that you're gonna love this

00:04:03.300 one. Tell me a little bit about what Siren Says is about, but then I can also do my elevator pitch

00:04:09.700 for it. Yes, because you were so good at pitching it. It's incredible. So the book is a retelling

00:04:15.360 of a Welsh myth through the eyes of a young woman living in Pennsylvania. It has botanical magic,

00:04:23.240 it has stoneworking like gemstones, and it has all of my favorite things. I mean, all of my

00:04:28.960 favorite things too I love a modern retelling of a myth but this myth you you told it to me this

00:04:35.000 morning we also opened the book festival by the way so we're like a little punchy right now

00:04:39.180 because we've done so many events today uh but you told it to me this morning and I loved it

00:04:45.600 because it's the woman in it that is powerful and you know I just saw the Odyssey we've talked about

00:04:52.860 it a lot on the sub stack and it was fine I'll watch Matt Damon do pretty much freaking anything

00:04:59.260 absolutely absolutely anything right like he can do no wrong I thought everyone in it 0.96

00:05:04.860 was was totally okay and I mean y'all know my takeaway was war is dumb 0.96

00:05:10.200 war is dumb and I think that's what Christopher Nolan wants you to believe 0.71

00:05:15.020 too but so many of the myths are actually about powerful women and those myths get overlooked so 0.85

00:05:22.820 tell me tell me the myth that you told me this morning that is also in the book so it's the

00:05:30.280 story of a woman named mish and this myth you probably haven't heard before because it wasn't

00:05:35.080 discovered until the 1950s it was tucked inside an ecclesiastic manuscript at maynooth university

00:05:41.400 so in this story mish is really really close to her dad and even when he goes to fight battles

00:05:48.680 she's there on the sidelines waiting for him and during this one battle he didn't return and so she

00:05:55.140 races to the battlefield she finds that he's dead and in her grief she starts licking his wounds

00:06:01.140 and something about you know ingesting his blood coupled with the enormity of her grief

00:06:06.880 causes her to become this enormous blackbird that terrorizes a town for over 300 years now the king

00:06:14.100 is really pissed about this because she's destroying his trade routes so he sends warriors

00:06:19.080 after her whole armies too and then and then this harpist a person who plays harp yes a harpist a 0.72

00:06:27.600 harp not a harpy no not a harpy no no no no a harpist a male harpist right a grown-ass man

00:06:33.980 with a harp says can I give it a try and everybody laughs at him but he does it anyway he climbs up

00:06:39.700 her mountain, which is metaphorical and also not metaphorical.

00:06:43.240 Well, I wouldn't, when I first heard it, I was like, is that a euphemism?

00:06:45.600 Is he climbing her mountain?

00:06:47.280 Well, here's the thing about ancient myths.

00:06:49.120 They are racy.

00:06:50.300 Like I couldn't even put this sort of thing in the book because it was actually too racy,

00:06:54.660 but he climbs her mountain and he plays music for her.

00:06:58.480 And the music is so, so beautiful that it reminds her that she is human. 0.85

00:07:03.240 And also they have sex. 0.99

00:07:04.220 They have a lot of sex. 1.00

00:07:05.620 So they have sex. 1.00

00:07:06.900 He plays music and then her feathers come off of her. 0.93

00:07:09.700 and her claws too and she becomes a human woman again not through brute force but through

00:07:15.900 gentleness oh my god I love it so much I mean all I want right now is more books movies pieces of

00:07:23.160 culture about strong ambitious fierce women and also just gentle caregiving men okay and I honestly

00:07:32.260 think and you know if you spend a lot of time with different kinds of mythologies from all cultures

00:07:38.660 you have so many stories like this but because it's been men writing them down for so long

00:07:44.720 uh and and being the gatekeepers being allowed to pass them down then a lot of the stories of women

00:07:51.500 empowering other women have been lost absolutely and what really surprised me about this one was

00:07:56.720 how racy it was I was like wow we are prudish now um and then the other thing the main character was

00:08:02.360 a woman and like her goal in life was not to find a man and settle down it was learn it was learning

00:08:08.180 how to be human after being overcome with grief, which I think is something that, you know, when

00:08:14.360 I think about mythology, you know, it's all about the wisdom that we pass down over generations.

00:08:20.560 And I was like, this is a piece of wisdom that I will always hold close to my heart.

00:08:24.860 Absolutely. And that is what good myths should be. They should teach us how to be in the world.

00:08:31.320 They should teach us how to be more human and how to be more human. I think personally to each other

00:08:37.180 when we were watching the odyssey and you know nick and i went to go see the odyssey

00:08:41.460 at 10 30 in the morning because it was the only time we had to watch to watch a three-hour movie 0.97

00:08:46.540 without our children but it's so much men just behaving like very very stupidly okay they're 0.93

00:08:53.920 like we're gonna storm this beach again and then we're gonna barbecue these cows we're not supposed 0.99

00:08:58.120 that we were told that if we barbecue them we will all die but we want to barbecue and you're

00:09:04.280 just like god like I'm literally learning I'm learning very little from this myth except that 0.70

00:09:08.920 women should rule the freaking world uh but like I want stories that tell me something genuine

00:09:15.600 about the human condition and that's why I love this story oh me too and I think you know it also 0.96

00:09:23.020 tells me like it gives us a guidepost for how do you manage these massive emotions that you'll

00:09:28.420 experience over the course of your life and it's like you do it first by allowing yourself to be 0.98

00:09:33.420 that big ass horrible bird that destroys everything like she rips out men's throats right like you get 0.98

00:09:39.320 to experience that you get to be vicious for a little while and then you get to come back to 0.98

00:09:44.700 yourself and there's no moralizing like nowhere in that story does they say do they say oh and 0.99

00:09:50.160 this mish lady she's a real bitch they're like no this is this is something that you have to go 0.98

00:09:54.760 through it's like a rite of passage there's actually a second part to the myth if you want 1.00

00:09:58.580 to hear and you don't know this part no i don't know so she ends up marrying this dude his name

00:10:02.300 dove rush because of course like you do marry the the man that teaches you how to be human again

00:10:07.480 or that helps you do it for yourself um and then later on he dies and she is obviously so distraught

00:10:15.040 because at this point they're best friends but this time when he dies she doesn't become an

00:10:20.360 enormous bird that terrorizes a town for 300 years she writes poetry and that's how she reminds

00:10:26.660 herself that she's human again and so as i think about what this myth means to me as well it's like

00:10:31.800 you know we discover who we are when we connect with our creative selves like that is how we

00:10:40.560 manage these big experiences so yes we get to be the enormous bird for a little while that

00:10:44.660 it destroys everyone and then later as we grow into that feeling we we learn better ways

00:10:50.120 we do and there's a lot in this book about something I love plant magic the healing

00:10:58.800 power of plants in our lives. I mean, guys, you know that I'm obsessed with this. I've told you

00:11:03.240 one of my favorite books that I've read so far besides Siren Says is Understory by Chloe Benjamin,

00:11:08.740 which is also how trees and other plants and fungal networks connect us all and also change

00:11:16.780 the human condition. So why plant magic in this? Well, as I was thinking about magic, I thought,

00:11:23.880 well, magic is something that's passed down over generations. And, and so that's where I started.

00:11:29.000 And I thought, okay, well, if I want to do something that's passed down over generations,

00:11:33.320 I thought, okay, what did I learn from my own mother? She was really into herbs and medicines.

00:11:38.820 And she would say things like, you know, if your joints are hurting you, you need to eat joints,

00:11:43.380 like you need to like boil some bones, right? You have all of these pieces of wisdom that are

00:11:47.640 using the natural world as a way to guide us toward, you know, toward healing. And so I thought,

00:11:54.800 okay, well, this is the wisdom that women are passing down anyway. And so what if we made that 1.00

00:12:00.600 wisdom through plants? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love this book because I, I want a little bit of escape

00:12:07.280 right now, guys. The world is, is a disaster. It was so crazy because I hate that I check out of

00:12:13.200 the news as much as I do now as a person who used to like literally like make news uh and create

00:12:20.500 like news platforms but frankly I don't think anyone's doing it that well right now but also

00:12:27.200 the news is a gd dumpster fire when I was on the road for Parisian heist I had NPR on a lot more

00:12:36.280 than usual and it's the same story over the same terrible story over and over again and so what I

00:12:41.860 want right now is some escapism. I want some sparkle. I want some joy. I want some empowerment

00:12:48.960 at the same time. And I just feel like Siren Says delivers on that so well. It's coming out at the

00:12:56.060 end of summer. I think it's a beautiful book, you know, for people to start reading now and start

00:13:00.460 talking about now as we go into spooky season. And as we start to retreat back into our homes

00:13:06.820 and into our own witchiness our own i get more witchy in the fall do you get more absolutely

00:13:12.540 more witchy in the fall i just spent the afternoon making spell jars with a bunch of book buyers

00:13:18.380 it's true it's true yeah um at the book crawl today if you bought a copy of siren says then uh

00:13:25.560 jenny would indeed help you make a spell for self-love and confidence that's right and you

00:13:33.620 know what everybody loved it everybody really loved it and took it really seriously because

00:13:38.700 you know there's something that was going around on the internet for a while it was something like

00:13:43.260 you know the mystics um the mystics call it manifestation the religious folk call it the

00:13:51.180 power of prayer the physicians the scientists call it the placebo effect but they all agree

00:13:58.480 on the same point which is that belief matters and so putting your belief into something I think

00:14:03.920 matters it totally matters I was talking about this the other day with someone the fact that

00:14:09.140 I can still cure my nine-year-old's boo-boo with a kiss like is proof that that matters is proof

00:14:17.300 that that is true and he had a real boo-boo because his sister I tell him not to play with

00:14:22.060 sticks guys I tell them not to play with sticks and and do they listen they don't they don't uh

00:14:28.800 and yeah so his sister his sister really really nailed him it's my fault because we were watching

00:14:35.220 the princess bride the night before and so oh yeah yeah yeah so the next day obviously everyone

00:14:41.660 is Inigo Montoya who will avenge their father uh but yeah but did I cure that really ghastly boo-boo

00:14:49.940 with a kiss and some a lot of Neosporin and a band-aid a very large band-aid I sure did

00:14:57.020 that's right and I think so much about being an adult is figuring out how to preserve that sense

00:15:01.520 of belief because we're taught all of the time that it's ridiculous right it would be ridiculous 0.66

00:15:06.140 for your husband to be like Joe I have this boo-boo would you kiss it and make it feel better 0.98

00:15:11.180 right because you've lost the belief I would never have sex with him ever again 0.88

00:15:15.040 don't do that don't do that nick here's the thing nick's gonna edit this episode so he's gonna be

00:15:24.360 like point taken piazza point taken but i do think that we need a little reminder that magic is real

00:15:33.920 and sparkle is real and where we put our beliefs is very real absolutely all right y'all i'm doing

00:15:42.520 this very special episode because i want you to go pick up siren says i love this book it is it's

00:15:48.600 just it's everything that you want to read right now as we close out the summer and as those of

00:15:53.520 you in philadelphia we send our children back to school this week but that said jenny's gonna pop

00:16:01.620 up with me at a bunch of events for the bookcase so order your book now and you can pop up at any

00:16:07.980 of them, and she will sign books with you, and we might also make some spells. I would love that.

00:16:14.900 She got me home safely, despite a lot of crazy lane switching, and despite the fact that we had

00:16:20.220 been on our feet chatting about books all day long. I'm going to do a giveaway of Siren Says

00:16:27.320 on my Instagram. It's launching shortly. We will also be giving away these gorgeous crow candles.

00:16:33.860 Crows play a really big part in the book, and I love crows, guys.

00:16:38.400 I love them because, like me, they hold grudges for pretty much their entire life and also pass them on through the generations, which I think means that crows are Sicilian, okay?

00:16:50.180 Yep, you heard it here first.

00:16:51.960 You did.

00:16:52.320 So I'm going to be putting up a giveaway of these beautiful little crow candles that Jenny's mom made, a set of Siren Says matches to go with the candles, and a signed copy of the book.

00:17:03.620 that'll be on my Instagram shortly. So keep an eye out for it. Have a great day, guys.

00:17:09.240 Do something nice for yourself. You deserve it.

00:17:33.620 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - August 23, 2026

Sunday Nice Things： A New Book You'll Absolutely Love

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