I Know A Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours

“A blood-soaked freakout that does for gas stations what Jaws did for beaches.”
Kirkus Reviews, on Rest Stop

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    Publication Date

    May 5, 2026

    Genres

    ,

    Print Length

    324 Pages (Paperback)
    TBA Words

    ISBN

    979-8-897320-16-5(Paperback)
    979-8-897320-17-2(eBook)

    MSRP

    $19.99 (Paperback)
    $9.99 (eBook)

    About I Know A Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours

    The first collection from USA Today bestselling author Nat Cassidy, featuring his unique blend of gleefully terrifying short fiction.

    "[A] platter of phobias… Luckily, for every scare, there is a sense of resilience and a laugh in the face of fear to get you there." —Fangoria Magazine, on Rest Stop

    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 locations and more 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 Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours is a travelogue down twisting side streets and through alleyways where the darkness has eyes… and teeth.

    Let’s hope you make it home in one piece.

    Praise

    “[A] platter of phobias… Luckily, for every scare, there is a sense of resilience and a laugh in the face of fear to get you there.”
    Fangoria Magazine

    “Nat Cassidy is quickly becoming one of those names in horror—along with Tananarive Due, Keith Rosson, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia—that inhabit the ‘go to’ section of my brain with it comes to picking up new books. They always delight, intrigue and horrify. Guaranteed to deliver.”
    Patton Oswalt

    “Somewhere between SAW and Sartre, there’s a detour. Nat Cassidy’s Rest Stop is that roadside attraction, a funny, beautiful, and scary novella that leavens its introspection with blood-spatter and a dusting of spider legs. It’s great!”
    Adam Cesare, author of Clown in a Cornfield and Influencer

    “Poignant and nasty as hell, Nat Cassidy’s Rest Stop is a thoughtful and sharply written chamber drama that veers off the rails into a profoundly devastating cosmic splatter spectacle.”
    Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

    “A blood-soaked freakout that does for gas stations what Jaws did for beaches.”
    Kirkus Reviews

    “One part Stephen King’s Desperation and one part Green Room, this is like a perfectly satisfying gas station hot dog—greasy, made of surprisingly complex components, and viscerally rewarding.”
    Publishers Weekly

    I Know A Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours News
    June 4, 2025
    This week we sold our 40,000th book! Just over a year ago, we celebrated selling 10,000 total books on March 28th, 2024. It took us two years to sell 10,000 books. Just over a year later, we quadrupled that number…
    May 15, 2025
    Rest Stop is a Next Generation IBA Finalist for Best New Horror. Even more impressive, this isn’t a novella category…
    April 10, 2025
    We are excited to announce Nat Cassidy’s Rest Stop and Joshua Millican’s Teleportasm are both nominated for Novella of the Year at the This Is Horror Awards.
    March 10, 2025
    A new review for Nat Cassidy’s REST STOP just dropped in Locus Magazine! “When done right, there’s nothing like a novella…”
    February 23, 2025
    We are excited to announce Nat Cassidy’s novella, Rest Stop, which we published last October, has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction…
    October 25, 2024
    ESQUIRE included Nat Cassidy’s novella, Rest Stop, on their list of “The Best Horror Books of 2024”, commenting, “This is what a novella is supposed to be…
    October 8, 2024
    Kirkus Reviews recently published their review of Nat Cassidy‘s forthcoming novella, Rest Stop. Read an excerpt of the review below, or read the full review on…
    October 3, 2024
    Holy Hotdog Rollers! Nat Cassidy’s Rest Stop was reviewed in Fangoria…
    September 30, 2024
    Two weeks out from release and Nat Cassidy’s Rest Stop is the #1 Horror book across all of Ingram’s 17 million titles…
    August 22, 2024
    Publishers Weekly recently published their review of Nat Cassidy’s forthcoming novella, Rest Stop. “This grimy survival horror novella from Cassidy careens along with anarchic glee… The splatterpunk plot hits the ground running and…”
    July 3, 2024
    Today we are revealing the full cover wrap for Nat Cassidy‘s novella, Rest Stop…
    December 18, 2023
    Today we are announcing the acquisition of Rest Stop, a new novella by Nat Cassidy…
    About the Author

    Nat Cassidy writes horror for the pages, stage, and screen. He’s the author of the acclaimed novels Mary: An Awakening of Terror and Nestlings. His books have been featured in best-of lists from Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, NPR, the Chicago Review of Books, the NY Public Library, and more, and he was named one of the “writers shaping horror’s next golden age” by Esquire.

    natcassidy.com

    Other Titles by Nat Cassidy
    🏆 Bestseller
    🥇 Award Finalist