The Shadows

Score: 4/5 Bookmarks

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for gifting me a review copy of The Shadows by Alex North, which comes out on July 7.

Wow, this is one creepy read, and I felt it had Stranger Things mixed with Good Omens vibes to it. Paul Adams is your run-of-the-mill 14-year-old, just trying to get through school. Paul and his one good friend, James, find themselves thrown together with two other boys, Charlie Crabtree and Billy Roberts, after they stand up for Paul and James during an altercation with a bully during PhysEd. But something is just not right about Charlie.

The friendship proceeds to get stranger and stranger with Charlie manipulating all of them to participate in what he calls ‘dream incubation’. He believes you can alter things in the waking world if you can learn to control your dreams.

The chapters alternate between ‘before’ and ‘now’ as well as following Detective Amanda Beck who is investigating a crime in another town that seems to fit the description of one that took place in Paul’s hometown 25 years earlier. The two collide in their quest to find out what really happened back then, and if there is still a killer on the loose.

I can’t say much more without giving anything away, and you’ll want to read this one for yourself. The audiobook is narrated brilliantly by Hannah Arterton and John Heffernan and you can get it on Libro.fm while supporting your favorite indie bookstore by clicking here. If you’d like a physical copy, click the button below.

Synopsis:

You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a sinister smile--always on the outside of the group. Some part of you suspected he might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing a murder so shocking that it’s attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the darkest corners of the internet--and inspired more than one copycat.

Paul Adams remembers the case all too well: Crabtree--and his victim--were Paul’s friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together. But now his mother, old and senile, has taken a turn for the worse. Though every inch of him resists, it is time to come home.

It's not long before things start to go wrong. Reading the news, Paul learns another copycat has struck. His mother is distressed, insistent that there's something in the house. And someone is following him. Which reminds him of the most unsettling thing about that awful day twenty-five years ago.

It wasn't just the murder.

It was the fact that afterward, Charlie Crabtree was never seen again...