The Shadows

Bookseller recommendation

“This is an onion of a mystery, layers deep, each one - each story wrapped around the shocking event at the center - shaped carefully around details that push the reader's suspicions in every direction. The old, dense wood beside the never-prosperous village was bound to give rise to scary stories, and an event - was it real? - decades before gave the town a particularly creepy bogeyman, upon whom an inventive child fixates until he has drawn his friends into an escalating course of action. Twenty years later, one of those children returns to the village, but has no wish to reengage with the past. The bogeyman haunts everyone here in different ways, though, and when an old clue and a new disappearance coincide, Paul can't keep the indifferent distance he forces to protect himself from the memory nobody can escape. ...Capturing the foreboding of 1990's horror films and the wistfulness of a life frozen by calamity, this book won my affection with its depiction of an independent bookstore and the vibrant person at its core, but its many emotionally rich moments, like little dapples of sunlight across a forest floor, will provide every reader with that moment of love that makes the horror that much more disturbing!”

— Nialle • The Haunted Bookshop

Bookseller recommendation

“Paul Adams may have left behind his hometown and the tragedy that happened 25 years ago, but as we know, ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ The murder that has haunted him for so long comes roaring back into his life when there’s a new killing and secrets are uncovered. Dreams really do come true, but this one may just kill Paul. Highly atmospheric and emotionally gripping, The Shadows is best read with all the lights on and well before you plan to go to sleep.”

— Pamela Klinger-Horn • Excelsior Bay Books