Review: I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours by Nat Cassidy

May 13, 2026

Synopsis:

There are locations in this world where the light doesn’t seem to reach. Where, no matter how illuminated the place might be, shadows creep in too strongly to fight back.

A suspiciously empty gas station rest stop in the middle of the night, littered with googley eyes… A doctor’s office, where a bottle of booze and a tear-stained folder wait on the desk… A tech millionaire’s haunted kitchen… A Bible-quoting ventriloquist’s dingy apartment… A yoga retreat in the middle of the desert, silent except for the screaming…

These supernatural and sinister locations are your destination, and bestselling author Nat Cassidy will be your guide. Featuring the Bram Stoker Award–nominated, critically acclaimed novella Rest Stop (one of Esquire’s Best Horror Books of 2024), along with a number of other original short stories, some which have never been published before, I Know A Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours is a travelogue down twisting side streets and through alleyways where the darkness has eyes…and teeth.

Review:

If you’re looking for a collection of short stories from different genres that you can read bit by bit, this book is a good fit. You don’t need to remember much from one story to the next.

The stories are all different lengths. Some are only a few pages long, while others take a little more time. I didn’t enjoy all of them equally – some more than others, while some I found myself I wanted more of, unsure what I was meant to take from them. My favourites were the darker ones: stories with fear, murder, being kidnapped, or strange situations that felt like they could be episodes of Black Mirror.

Overall, this book felt like a nice break from longer reads. It was easy to pick up and put down, and while I liked some stories more than others, it was absolutely worth my time.

🌙 Recension: I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours by Nat Cassidy
📚 Genre: Horror, Novella, Short Stories
📅 Release Date: May 5, 2026
📖 Publisher: Shortwave Publishing
📗 available in various formats
📱 Read as: Kindle
💸 I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
🗣️ Language: English
📆 Pages: 472
⭐️ 4/5