Love the suspense that this books brings, and how the story is constructed in a way that you little by little start to understand what happened. It doesn't come all at once. The audiobook is pretty interesting, with nice narrators. I normally listen at 1.5x speed, but this one I thought it was better at 1.25x.

Really enjoyed this audiobook! The accents of the characters felt very authentic and I really enjoyed the voice actor.

I had read "The Shadows' before listening to the audiobook so it was nice to hear this story acted out. Alex North's stories have always gripped me from the beginning, and I was so looking forward to this one after we chose The Whisper Man as our book club pick and everyone really enjoyed it. I will definitely be recommending this to the club as well!

II am very disappointed that I was not given a deadline and that it said Not set, and then disappeared.

Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio via NetGalley for the advanced listening copy of The Shadows by Alex North!

Full disclosure: I could only listen to this during daylight hours. John Heffernan is delightfully creepy and this book totally blew The Whisper Man out of the water. The other narrator was also very good, I think they both captured the moods of the book and voices of the characters with excellent listen-ability. I don't know the proper word but will definitely be interested in checking out if they have any other recordings.

As for the book itself: oh my gosh so creepy. I guessed one of the main reveals by sheer luck and the whole book felt a lot more cohesive than North's first effort. I am so, so excited to see what else he has in store for us.

Totally recommend the book and audio to anyone who is a fan of thriller/horror/creepy crazy novels! Thank you so much again to Macmillan audio. All opinions are my own

What a fantastic book! There were so many twists and turns that I didn’t see coming at all. It was exciting and I devoured this novel very quickly.

This is my second book from Alex North, but definitely won’t be the last. I love the author’s writing and suspense build up.

The characters are dynamic and intriguing. Everybody stands out in their own unique way which I absolutely love!

The narrator is amazing and truly captures the emotion behind each scene.

If y'all thought The Whisper Man was good, this one is even better!
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When Paul Adams' elderly mother takes a turn for the worst, he realizes he must go home. Home to a town where the gruesome murder of one of his best friends took place twenty-five years ago. But now, a copycat murder has taken place & it could possibly be influenced by the individual responsible for the first one. After all, he never was caught...
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Hell yes! Give me mystery, suspense, secrets, AND a shocking twist in a book & I am one happy bookworm!
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I did not expect to feel emotional at certain points, to learn about lucid dreaming, nor to read a book that includes the pressures some boys face to fit in.
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I am SO glad NetGalley had this available as a "Listen Now" option for their new audiobooks section. Big thanks to them for the opportunity to listen to it in exchange for my review.

II said it in my review for The Whisper Man and I say it again. King finally has someone to challenge him. It is funny that this books has a bit of a dialog on King.

This book is creepy and fast-paced. He does a great job at telling a story. You can definitely see his influence from Stephen King.

The book was unique and well written. I may be having nightmares for a while. Horror stories with kids don't sit well with me

As expected, Alex North created a fantastically creepy atmosphere and setting for The Shadows. I didn’t see the ending coming, I surprised in more ways than one about how the story clued up, and yet it did just that. It was all sewn up in a great package by the time it was over.
I can’t wait to recommend this to friends.

The starting is wonderful. The premise with lucid dreaming and a murder before 25 years... Everything is good.

But the ending is just crammed with lots of plot points. If the book was spaced evenly it would have been better. Also some plot points just didn't add up. But the atmosphere created by the author is just perfect.

Another author that I’ve read previously would be Alex North. He blew his first book out of the park and again I had high hopes for his second book and he blew this one completely out of the park too! Creepy, dark, suspenseful and from the beginning I was hooked!!!
In the beginning the main character Paul was being taken to the police station for something that his mother knew he didn’t do. A murder of a classmate by their peers in an attempt to make a sacrifice to a being that the murderers thought would let them stay in a dream like land! The novel time jumps from when Paul was 16 to now when he returns because his mother is very ill. There is a case similar to the previous case where Paul was originally a suspect before happened again and they linked it to a forum. The twist and the turns that take Paul and a detective through the whole case is mind blowing! I literally was addicted from the beginning and finished the book in one afternoon! If you like deep dark and twisted mysteries with a deep dark side then you will definitely like this book!

Red hands. Red hands everywhere.

The synopsis left me all but eager to begin "The Shadows", and I truly wanted to love it. But unfortunately for me it was just okay. I know that I am in the minority when I say this but I just couldnt love this book. I listened to it in audio form and am contemplating going back and actually reading it because I cant help but feel that maybe its me and not the book. I will say though that both narrators were fantastic. I respect Alex Norths writing enough to not only give it another try but also to urge other readers to not be dissuaded by my rating of 3*.

Charlie Crabtree is an obviously extremely disturbed child. He has his friends, Billy Roberts, James Dawson, and Paul Adams believing in the myth of Mister Red Hands. Charlie Crabtree urges his friends to begin keeping dream diaries in an attempt to find Mister Red hands during their lucid dreaming. Charlie later participates in a ritualistic murder, goes missing and becomes a cult figure in the darkest corners of the internet. Twenty- five Years later the myth is still very much alive and has claimed yet another victim, Michael Price.

Overall I found this book to be interesting and somewhat creepy, but all to hard to follow.

I recieved a digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I thought The Whisper Man by Alex North was quite a page turner, and was excited to get my hands on The Shadows. Unfortunately, this book wasn't really for me. It felt overlong (and it's not unusually long) and not very original. I was intrigued by the characters, which is why I kept reading, but the plot just didn't grab my attention, which is maybe odd, because it was creepy. Ultimately, I think it just felt as though I've read variations of the same story many times. Not really a bad book, but not what I was hoping for either.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this audiobook of The Shadows by Alex North. At first I thought this would be too scary for me. Ha! It wasn't too terribly bad. There were moments while listening I cringed (that's a good sign, right?) but made it through. The narrators did a fantastic job bringing personality to the characters. Love when narrators can draw you into the story.
Highly recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free audiobook of The Shadows by Alex North. There were two narrators for this audiobook - a male and female. I enjoyed both narrators. I enjoyed this book very much. The book is told in the present and the past and from the perspectives of two main characters. The author did a great job making the characters real. There was an equal amount of suspense, surprise, and even moments to make the reader cry.

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest review.

The Shadows is a creepy little tale spanning two time periods. When Paul was a child, he was friends with a group of boys who started dabbling in lucid dreaming and urban legends. A boy named Charlie convinced one of the gang to help him murder someone before vanishing without a trace. Now as an adult, Paul is determined to find out what's going on when another copycat case happens 25 years later. Has Charlie really returned?

This book is a great blend of thriller with some horror elements thrown in for fun. It has an interesting premise and I actually liked the uncertainty of potential supernatural elements which isn't something I usually enjoy. It was well-paced, I couldn't entirely tell where it was going to go and it did manage to genuinely surprise me. There were only a few minor points which stopped it being perfect. Firstly, there are some chapters narrated by a police officer investigating the crimes (Amanda). These felt largely unnecessary and didn't really add a whole lot in my opinion. I feel the story could have been easily reworked to not have these sections and it wouldn't have lost anything. Secondly, I found it a little difficult to keep track of what time period it was. Rather than have it at the start of every chapter, it would only let you know when it was switching which meant it would always take me a few seconds to work out which part we were in. This wasn't a major issue but it was distracting.

In terms of the audiobook, I had no complaints. There are two narrators for Paul and Amanda, and they both had great voices.

Overall, if you like creepy thrillers with a darker atmosphere then this is a great book to pick up. It has a fairly unique tone for a thriller and it was one I enjoyed immensely. I can't wait to finally check out North's other book and I'm sure I will love it just as much as this one.

Overall Rating:

I read this as a buddy read and then found out that it was one of the first NetGalley audiobooks and was able to easily read and re-read many parts. This was so involved with so many characters that could be the Murderer. I even accused Paul, the main character. Comparing North’s books, I would say that this one was better than Whisper Man. It was also nice to revisit Detective Beck.

I am usually not a fan of thrillers, but I though this was the perfect combination of creepy and scary. The audio was a little hard to hear, but I thought the narrators did beautifully.

The writing, characters, and story were very interesting and kept me engaged the whole time.

I enjoyed Chalk Man” so I tried really hard with this one but just couldn’t get into it. I picked it as my Book of the Month and when it arrived I struggled to get into it. Then I saw NetGalley had the audiobook available so I gave that I try.

The plot with the dream journals and such is fascinating and I’m not really sure how a story about that stayed so consistently dull. I eventually made it through the audio book, but frequently found myself not paying attention and having to go back and relisten.

I rate by the Goodreads rating system so 4 stars = I "really liked it."

The Shadows by Alex North is the first time I have read this author. For me, this is the greatest appeal of NetGalley - the exposure to the books and authors I have yet to discover; it reminds me of the saying, "Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet." I also use the term "read" loosely because I listened to The Shadows. This was my first audiobook experience via NetGalley, and I'd rank it right up there with Audible. The quality of the production was excellent. With that being said, I felt neutral about the switching of narrators. I have never quite fancied this technique. If anything, changing narrators pulls me out of the story. I can become so engrossed in an audiobook, I forget that I am listening to a story; I'm almost living the story, but then when the male narrator changes to a female narrator and vice versa, I'm removed from the story, almost like waking from a sleep that leaves you unable to differentiate between fact (real life) or fiction (dream) . . . yeah, those of you who have read The Shadows know . . .

For a while, I did find it difficult to keep up with the transitions between past and present. I do not know if this was an intentional design of the book or if it was a unique struggle of my own. However, this worked to benefit me later because WOW . . . just WOW . . . when bits and pieces of information were revealed and finally started to come together! I know how vague this is, but I only review what I like, don't like, etc., and I do my best to leave the plot discussion to those folks who like to dig below the surface . . .

In my opinion, there were three BIG reveals, and I rank them in the following way: a slap in the face, a gut punch, and a throat punch. I sometimes found myself frustrated when I couldn't put the pieces together on my own; even when I got close, the plot took yet another twisty turn.

Character wise, I didn't connect with Amanda. Overall, I think that the idea of a female cop internally struggling to live up to her father's (perceived) expectations and craving his approval whilst living in the shadows of the great cops before her to be . . . typical, almost overdone (this is not to imply that this particular plotline was overdone in The Shadows, I find the topic in general to be done to death in books, TV, and movies). The thing is . . . IRL, I'm a Crime Analyst working in the heart of a police department so I see, hear, and live the stereotypes, to include being female in a male dominated world. Hint to writers out there: the truly bad@$$ female cops, detectives, etc. are those who don't realize just how bad@$$ they are. My understanding is that Amanda Beck is a recurring character so my initial impression of her could be wrong since this is my first meet and greet with her.

Overall, I really and truly enjoyed this book. So much so, I was annoyed when I was in a car accident and couldn't continue listening to the audiobook during my commutes since my car is . . . toast.. (I'm fine though).
However, just the fact that something bad happened to me while being exposed to Charlie Crabtree, much like those who truly knew him . . . it really added creeptasticness to my experience in The Shadows.

*Thanks to NetGalley for providing me the audiobook in exchange for my honest review*

I don't normally read thrillers but the premise of this book was very interesting to me. When I found out that I was approved for this book, I got very excited to start reading it. A few things I really enjoyed were the dual perspectives which included the main protagonist Paul Adams and Detective Amanda Beck. It was very interesting to see the events fold out from both sides. I also love the 'before' and 'after' of the main event that happens in the book. I find it intriguing to see pieces of the mystery slowly piece together and to also learn things that the other person might not know. What makes this story different from most other books is that a main component to the story is lucid dreaming. I haven't really looked into it much and haven't thought much of it. Reading about (fictional) people learning how to lucid dream and use that ability to do sinister things was very fascinating and now I kind of want to learn how to lucid dream. Another thing I really enjoyed in this story was the plot twists toward the end of the book and how Alex North rounded all the plot points and events up into a shocking, scary and enjoyable bundle. The twists and turns were written really well and I felt like the characters were well flushed out too. The main event in this story is the murder that was committed by Billy and Charlie and not revealing who they killed until the end of the story was a great idea. Then having it revealed through a lucid dream by Paul that it was his girlfriend Jenny who was murdered and the times we ever saw Jenny after the main event was all in Paul's lucid dreams. The only thing I could critique is not the story but the audiobook itself. I found the narrators to not have much life to them, so I listened to the booked at 2x speed and it sounded better.