Celadon Books The Shadows

Also known as The Shadow Friend, The Shadows follows Paul Adams who has returned to his home town to see his dying mother. He hasn’t been home since two of his friends brutally murdered their classmate 25 years ago. Meanwhile, Amanda Beck, a detective from a nearby town of Featherbank, is investigating a murder which is eerily similar to the murder from 25 years ago. Her investigation leads her to Charlie Crabtree, the one who taught Paul about lucid dreams and physical manifestations.I really enjoyed Alex North’s previous book, The Whisper Man, and while I enjoyed this, there was something about it that made it just not as good. I felt like that the ending twists were good, however they were too rushed. Everything came together really quickly and all at once.I did really liked the characters and seeing how cleverly everything had been tied together. I enjoy Alex North’s writing and look forward to his next work!

Love the writting.

With this horror novel, the author poses an interesting question, “To what extent can dreams influence reality?” Four teen boys, all misfits in one way or another, band together against the bullies, both adolescent and adult in their lives. Their leader, Charlie, is perpetually angry, wanting to escape his dysfunctional family and poverty. He convinces the others, Billy, his second-in-command, James, a small boy, frequently a target, and Paul, the main character to keep dream diaries. He tells them that a man he calls “Red Hands” killed a boy years before, and this act enabled him to live permanently in a dream world of his own creation. Charlie coaches the other boys to try to influence their dreams through the process of lucid dreaming.Of the boys, Paul remains skeptical. He has reason to disassociate from the group because he has become attracted to a classmate, Jenny. He starts pulling away from the others and leaves his former best friend, James, in the thrall of Charlie. Then the unimaginable happens, a heinous crime that bears Charlie’s unmistakable imprint. Charlie disappears as if he walked off the face of the earth. Paul is initially a suspect.Twenty-five years later, Paul comes back to the town he fled to be with his mother, who is dying from cancer and has dementia. He is staying in his former house and begins to believe he is being stalked. His mother, in a rare moment of lucidity, recognizes him and tells him he shouldn’t have come home and that something is in the house.This story has all the elements of an early Stephen King novel, the childhood friendships, the outsider status of some of the characters, the town that’s a little off, the immersive reading experience, and the supernatural elements. With the latter, the paranormal, Alex North, has a lighter hand, allowing the reader to interpret the main character’s experiences in more than one way. North also includes a beauty of a twist that sent me back several chapters to see how he pulled off this sleight-of-hand.The book does have several flaws, one being that the character of Detective Amanda Beck is almost superfluous to the story. Another is that several crimes are similar involving incidents with groups of boys. These are hard to keep straight. North is a wonderful writer, and I plan to read everything he writes. Stephen King fans should run, not walk, to get this book.

Alex North's novel "The Whisper Man" was both captivating and thought provoking, hence my 5 star review. But his second novel doesn't generate the same continuity and demands that the reader pays close attention to the timeline and character traits. Jumping back and forth over a 25 year time period gives it a "coming of age" flavor like Stephen King's "IT".BUT the various "lucid dreams" undertaken by the characters combined with the frequent time shifts makes for a lends itself to confusion. In a lucid dream you know that you are dreaming. This has actually happened to about 55 % of people during their lifetime. There are published tips to help individuals experience lucid dreams and remarkably those in that dream state may actually be able to control some of it.The extremely unsettling experience of having had one of our children originally prone to 'night terrors' helped me to draw parallels with the lucid dream experience. Besides the nod to Stephen King's "IT" you can add in inspiration from the Japanese film "The Suicide Forest" to the plot along with a nod to the mythical "Slenderman" internet meme. Unfortunately this hodgepodge of thoughts combined with the frequent time shifts may have overwhelmed my desire for clarity with what was happening in the story.The other wrinkle was that I was constantly picking the novel up when I had a few minutes available and then having to put it down because of outside/intervening factors. That lack of personal continuity may have also affected my ability to follow and completely understand each nuance that Mr. North presented. On occasion I would go back and try to validate the story's facts in order to stay on the correct track but it became an effort to do so and resulted in a less than positive reading experience.So I suggest that you pick up "The Whisper Man" and give it a read. If you enjoy it and find that you have the time to take the next step, read "The Shadows" in a few concentrated readings and see what you think.

I had read Alex North's previous novel, The Whisper Man, several weeks ago. I wasn't a fan of that story, and I gave it a 3-star ranking. However, I was intrigued by his follow-up novel, The Shadows. I expected it to be better than The Whisper Man. In fact, a few people led me to believe that it was. Unfortunately, North's second novel disappointed me as equally as his first.1: The overall structure of the novel/plot is a repeat of his debut novel, The Whisper Man. So much so that it was a bit irritating. I was dumbfounded that he'd follow the same format with his follow-up novel. 2: The novel also suffers from the same idiosyncrasies found in the The Whisper Man. Lots of internal dialogue. Lots of repetition of a character's statements littered throughout. Another recurring irritation: the one-sentence action beat of a character immediately followed by a new paragraph of dialogue, but I had no idea if it was to be attributed to the character referenced in the action beat or the character that the first character was talking to.Initially, I liked The Shadows much more than I'd liked The Whisper Man. For a while, I anticipated giving the novel 4 stars. However, nearly 3/4 of the way through, the plot fell apart once the [SPOILER]Jenny reveal occurred.[END SPOILER] From then on, a lot of the plot points didn't make sense. It seemed forced rather than unfolding naturally as a plot twist. Then the ensuing events seemed too far fetched. In a way, it seemed that North had a great idea but then he reached a point where he needed to shake things up. Unfortunately, it didn't work.For me, the events that happened in the novel's past were much more interesting than the present. I wouldn't be surprised if his publisher and editor pushed him to try and rehash The Whisper Man in an attempt to match that novel's success. It failed.2.5 stars from me, but I rounded up because North is not a bad writer. I'm sure there is a future novel of his that I will love.