Sent 70,000 words when they asked for 80,000? That shortfall can get you rejected before anyone reads a page. Part 2 of Words That Get You Into Trouble looks at the hidden cost of writing short.
Tag Archives: Gaius Konstantine
Book Feature: Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo
Have you ever reached the last book of a series and wanted to read it slowly, just so it wouldn’t be over yet? That’s exactly where I landed with Dead Beat, the final Alex Stern novel from Leigh Bardugo. Ninth House came out in 2019. Hell Bent followed in 2023. And then we waited, again, for Bardugo to tell us what happens when a girl who can see the dead drags someone back out of hell and forgets to close the door behind her.
Book Review: A Healer’s Prophecy by Karoline Ettinger
Karoline Ettinger’s A Healer’s Prophecy, Book 1 of the Kallos Trilogy, is a hopeful, beautifully written coming-of-age fantasy. Read our five-star review.
Book Review: Alone Together by S.S. Fitzgerald
Army veteran Dr. Dakota J. Miller reviews Alone Together by S.S. Fitzgerald, a post-apocalyptic horror novel that gets pandemic protocols right.
#JustReadingNook Halloween Picks
Five horror legends, seven indie standouts, and the double features to read them in. Your October stack starts here.
Book Review: The Gallos by C.J. Simone
Seventeen-year-old photographer Sylvia Brooks already lives under the shadow of her father’s crimes when she moves into the Gallo mansion to finish high school. Two people vanish. She wakes with a head wound and a hole in her memory. In a town ready to believe the worst of her, she has to decide whether she is hunting the truth or becoming it.
Publishing Insight by Gaius Konstantine
How long should your novel be? Gaius Konstantine explains why word count matters for debut authors, whether you’re querying agents or publishing indie.
Book Review: Itsy Bitsy Spyder by J.R. Larriba
J.R. Larriba’s Itsy Bitsy Spyder: Evolution starts as a gritty Marin County murder case and ends somewhere far stranger. The genre swerves can jolt you, but sharp banter, a creeping sentient fog, and real heart make this a wild ride worth taking.”
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.