Book Review – Page 3

Spotlight: Dr. Dakota J. Miller

Dakota J. Miller, author of the Southern Gothic horror novella The Curses We Keep

Dakota J. Miller wrote a Southern Gothic novella about a family fleeing the Salem witch trials. Then the internet came for him over AI. Here’s what actually happened, in his own words.

What’s New This Week at #JustReadingNook?

Here’s what’s new for the week of September 25, 2026 at #JustReadingNook

Book Review: Heroless by Antoine Monks

Heroless by Antoine Monks takes a two-track look at the superhero genre after the costumes have already failed. One strand is almost domestic: years after Fortune City’s protectors were pushed back into ordinary life, former heroine Elizabeth—once Disk Girl—sits down over coffee and dinner with her quiet confidant Roy, formerly Justice-Hand. Their talk is the book’s emotional spine. Through regrets, jokes that don’t quite land, and vivid flashbacks, they revisit the bright early days of the city’s hero coalition, the fights with super-criminals that kept getting uglier, and the public paranoia that finally made masks look like a public menace instead of a promise.

Book Review: Bloodbound: Covenant by Noah Raines

Bloodbound Covenant (Book One of the Bloodbound Saga) by Noah Raines leans into that discomfort. Two teenagers meet, seemingly by chance, and are pulled into an old war against ancient enemies. Caleb grows up on a Montana farm with a cold, distant father still marked by Vietnam. A thousand miles away, sixteen-year-old Sofia mourns her father, an ex-cop who died nine years earlier under murky circumstances.

Book Review: Adventura by Ettie Star

Adventura is a fast, original science-fiction novel set on a tidally locked theme-park world celebrating its twentieth anniversary. At its center is Justin “Juzzie” Jayce, a park janitor wrongly accused of corporate treason after a viral fault sends the animatronics on a rampage against performers and guests. To clear his name and save robotics engineer Kara Holt—who also plays the park’s Princess Oriana—Juzzie must cross the park’s most dangerous zones and collect the hidden Guardian Gems needed to reboot the corrupted central AI, Cerebrum.

Book Feature: The Light of Arunzi by Katelyn Peterson

Have you ever picked up a fantasy novel expecting a chosen kid and ended up rooting for a stocky, balding, middle-aged cop instead? That’s what The Light of Arunzi did to me. It’s the debut novel in Katelyn Peterson’s The Magois Chronicles from Convergence Point Press, set in modern-day Toronto, where tactical police work and aristocratic magic share a city and do not get along. A hostage negotiation leads straight into a 3:00 AM knock at Greg’s door. From there, it turns into a story about who protects the helpless, and what that costs the protector. There are lion cubs, magical foals, and noble houses with long memories. But the heart of this book is a sergeant with a very bad habit of putting himself last. I have thoughts. Let’s get into it.

What’s New This Week at #JustReadingNook?

Here’s what’s new for the week of September11, 2026 at #JustReadingNook

Book Review: Legacy of Blood by Jessica Barberi

Footprints by Simon Meredith weaves two timelines—1928 and 1986—into a genuinely spooky supernatural mystery, anchored by a wonderfully original hook: living paint as a conduit for fear and memory. With a richly unsettling setting and memorable characters, this is a creative, gripping read for horror and mystery fans alike.

Spotlight: Timothy Robare

Robare writes across genres the way some people collect passport stamps. He has a gritty, humor-laced action series. A more traditional good-versus-evil fantasy. A character-driven novella. And poetry, which he calls his “main squeeze.” That range alone makes him worth a closer look. But it’s the story behind the range, how a kid who couldn’t hear or speak for years of his childhood ended up building an entire literary life out of words, that makes him worth sitting with.