To Wake the Shadows

Suspense/Thriller - Horror

Mary Margaret’s life started changing rapidly after her fifteenth birthday, and not in a good way. Back then she started having dreams, prophetic ones, and hearing voices. Not to mention that she knows there is something in the basement. Still, Mary does her best to live a normal life -  she gets a boyfriend, goes to school, has some very good moments, until the shadows wake, and the darkness wants her…

Now, Mary, her beloved cousin Andy, the famous psychic Emmeline, and the guard dog Lucy have to fight the shadows and figure out a way to banish them for good… 

This is a very gripping, fast paced novel! And, even though the protagonists are teens, it’s a very dark one, a horror for all intents and purposes.  While the suspense and the scary parts were written well, the book needed a bit more.  The characters were  different and interesting, but a little more about ALL of their usual lives and their relationships, not just Mary’s, would have made the story much more meaningful - giving it something to make the reader identify with and feel closer to them. That would have made the scary scenes even more effective, because there would be no hope for detachment. Also, the ending was a bit of a letdown... unless the author is planning a sequel?  On the whole, though, this book is interesting, with a cast of great characters (including Lucy, of course) and holds an important message.

Mimi Smith