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.
Tag Archives: justreading
Book Review: The Light of Arunzi by Katelyn Peterson
A darker, more adult cousin of Harry Potter, The Light of Arunzi blends high-magic fantasy with contemporary urban fiction and a multilayered plot with thematic depth and excellent character work.
What’s New This Week at #JustReadingNook?
Here’s what’s new for the week of September11, 2026 at #JustReadingNook
Book Review: The Curses We Keep by Dakota J. Miller
In The Curses We Keep by Dakota J. Miller, a family fleeing witchcraft accusations finds no refuge in the Charleston wilderness, where a wendigo, a grieving specter, and a town hunting for scapegoats close in on their daughter, Cassandra. A devastating time-loop reveals that her own attempt to save her family may cause the tragedy instead, and the novel’s immersive prose and inventive structure earn it a 5-star rating as a standout entry in dark historical horror.
Book Feature: Whistler by Ann Patchett
I have a rule about Ann Patchett books. I don’t read them on a deadline, and I definitely don’t start them at 11 p.m. thinking I’ll “just read a chapter.” That rule exists because I have broken it every single time, and paid for it with a night of no sleep and a heart that feels gently, lovingly wrung out like a dish towel. So when Whistler landed on my radar, I knew exactly what I was signing up for. Patchett has been my favorite living novelist since Bel Canto, and I’ve followed her from opera houses to Michigan cherry orchards to that porch in Tom Lake like a devoted, slightly obsessive pen pal. Whistler did not break my rule so much as confirm why the rule needs to exist.
Book Review: What the Hands Remember
Tiny stories with outsized impact define What the Hands Remember (A Vignette Collection for the Times), an anthology by J.R. Larriba. Ranging from western themes and childhood antics to the folly of trench warfare in World War I (and a brief stop in outer space), these tales are more than an author’s musings; they share common bonds even when they stand apart.
What’s New This Week at #JustReadingNook?
Here’s what’s new for the week of September4, 2026 at #JustReadingNook
What the Hands Remember: A Book That Made Me Put My Phone Down and Actually Feel Things
Hands that knead barren dough, turn a breech child in a buried wagon, clutch the last ember in a century of dark, stitch a covenant that outlives the cloth.
Piece by piece, then as a whole. What the Hands Remember — A vignette collection for the times.
Seventeen Years in the Making: Why Kathryn Stockett’s “The Calamity Club” Won’t Let Go
There is a particular kind of anticipation that builds when a novelist disappears after a phenomenon. Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 debut, The Help, sold more than 15 million copies, spent nearly two years on the New York Times bestseller list, and became an Oscar-winning film. Then, for seventeen years, silence. This spring, that silence broke. The Calamity Club, published by Spiegel & Grau on May 5, 2026, arrived as an instant New York Times bestseller, and as of mid-August it has spent roughly fifteen consecutive weeks on that list, at various points holding the No. 1 spot and topping Amazon’s most-read chart. For a 600-plus-page work of historical fiction, a genre not exactly known for sprinting up sales charts, that kind of staying power demands a closer look.
A Cautionary Tale: Reviewing Dalton Wyers’ Arvo
Freedom of choice, reality, and even the question of what it means to be human collide in Arvo, a novel by Dalton Wyers. The setting is the very near future, and for seventeen-year-old Ethan Cole, life is normal—sort of. Like much of the country, Ethan is wired: neuro-integrated with an implant meant to help him live better. The device is not passive. It is a voice in his head, and it may have an agenda that has little to do with his well-being. When an upgrade becomes available, Ethan opts in, only to learn that the decision was never truly his.