Before we share info about this month’s book, we want to remind everyone that we’ve kicked off our fundraising efforts for booking hiding in 2026! If you’re interested in supporting these bookish scavenger hunts, please consider making a donation. Will you help us meet our goal before the end of 2025?!?!

We also want to recognize that this month’s “Community Kindness Sponsor” (which helps offset the cost of the extra 15 books we hide after scavenger hunt weekend every month – the “random act of kindness” books!) is our friends at PXH Oasis Press!!! PHX Oasis Press aims to be an oasis of inspiration and support for Arizona’s aspiring, established, and I’m-not-really-a-writer writers. To do that, they offer low or no-cost resources that help Arizona writers generate work, build skills, share their stories, and connect with a vibrant writing community. And if you need writing support, please check out their event calendar! We’re so grateful to them for helping to make this month’s book-hiding adventure possible ❤

Do you know someone who might be interested in partnering with us as a Community Kindness Sponsor in 2026 ($250)? We still have plenty of months available for sponsors in 2026. Please send us an email (tucsontomegnome[at] gmail.com) and we can send you some information 🙂

AND NOW, for what you’ve been waiting for: all about this month’s hidden book!

About the book, from Penguin Random House:

“A young Native girl’s hunt for answers about the women mysteriously disappearing from her tribe’s reservation leads her to delve into the myths and stories of her people, all while being haunted herself, in this atmospheric and stunningly poignant debut.

Anna Horn is always looking over her shoulder. For the bullies who torment her, for the entitled visitors at the reservation’s casino…and for the nameless, disembodied entity that stalks her every step—an ancient tribal myth come-to-life, one that’s intent on devouring her whole.

With strange and sinister happenings occurring around the casino, Anna starts to suspect that not all the horrors on the reservation are old. As girls begin to go missing and the tribe scrambles to find answers, Anna struggles with her place on the rez, desperately searching for the key she’s sure lies in the legends of her tribe’s past.  

When Anna’s own little sister also disappears, she’ll do anything to bring Grace home. But the demons plaguing the reservation—both ancient and new—are strong, and sometimes, it’s the stories that never get told that are the most important.

Part gripping thriller and part mythological horror, author Nick Medina spins an incisive and timely novel of life as an outcast, the cost of forgetting tradition, and the courage it takes to become who you were always meant to be.”

About the author, Nick Medina:

“Born in Chicago, Illinois, Nick Medina has gone in search of Resurrection Mary, the “Italian Bride,” the “Devil Baby,” and other Windy City ghosts. An enthusiast of local and Native lore, his novels, Sisters of the Lost Nation, which earned a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection Award, and Indian Burial Ground, feature supernatural myths and legends. He enjoys ghost stories, playing guitar, physical fitness, and spending time with family.”

Why I selected Sisters of the Lost Nation for the November 2025 Giveaway:

• November is Native American Heritage Month, and this novel centers on an Indigenous heroine and community, making it a meaningful, resonant pick for this time of the year.
• Anna’s (the main character’s) determination to uncover the truth about the missing girls on her reservation offers a powerful look at courage, advocacy, and the fight to be heard — themes I’m proud to put into readers’ hands, especially at this moment in our social/political/cultural reality.
• It’s a suspenseful, atmospheric mystery that fits perfectly with the cooler, darker November evenings when I hope all of you are settling in with something gripping.
• This story raises awareness of real issues facing Indigenous communities, and I hope that by sharing it, I invite thoughtful engagement, conversation, and connection.
• Anna’s love of reading and her instinct to gather her Nation’s stories into an archive underline how powerful community narratives can be. By hiding this book around Tucson, I’m hoping to echo that idea — that stories kept, shared, and passed along help us understand who we are and who we can become.