Matthew Green's "Shadowlands" offers a captivating journey through the forgotten corners of Britain's history, exploring the ghost towns and vanished villages that dot its landscape. Green brings these lost places to life, unraveling the stories of their rise and demise with vivid detail and rich imagery. From Dunwich, plunged into the sea by coastal erosion, to the abandoned village of Wharram Percy, decimated by the Black Death, readers take a haunting tour of these once-thriving communities. Drawing on a diverse array of sources, including historical records, archaeological findings, and personal accounts, he reconstructs the lives of the people who inhabited these shadowlands, illuminating their hopes, dreams, and struggles. It is a melancholy but worthwhile read.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Green's engaging prose, meticulous research, and deep appreciation for the landscapes and communities he explores make this book fun reading for anyone interested in understanding the more human tapestry of British history and culture.

I am a sucker for anything British: the country, the towns, the traditions, the history. This book by Matthew Green hit upon so many of my loves and immersed me in the world of history...and its ghosts. I have visited many of the places he writes about and between eery chills and delightful nuggets of knowledge, I find myself desperate to go back and visit with my new found knowledge. Highly enjoyable and a British fanatic's dream!

I have a fascination with British history and having being born in Yorkshire in a tiny villageI felt a real connection to this book. I really felt the sadness permeating from this book for the lost places where, at one time people lived worked and went about their daily lives until, for various reasons these villages were lost forever. Matthew Green paints a poignant portrait of these places of the past and gives an in-depth account of a, for the most part, forgotten history.

What a fascinating book! The author takes us throughout the UK visiting vanished towns, villages, and cities. The reasons for the disappearances range from plague, falling into the sea, being buried in sand.

It is obvious that a lot of research went into this book, and as someone who studied Archaeology, I found the whole book fascinating. It will appeal to all those who like lost places.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC!

“Shadowlands: A Journey Through Britain's Lost Cities and Vanished Villages,” by Matthew Green (ISBN: 9780393635348), Publication Date: 19 Jul 2022, earns four stars for the narrative, but misses five stars because the book offers no maps and almost no photographs to support the riveting narrative, the addition of which would greatly help place the reader “there.”

This is a fascinating series of stories about rediscovering Britain’s lost past by recounting the discovery of vanished villages, towns, and cities throughout the British Isles. Why did they disappear? How did they disappear? The answers are as varied as the towns themselves. Some were covered in water; others were buried in sand. For some, the land on which they stood eroded causing them to fall into the sea. Some were abandoned due to the plague, others were taken over by the military for urban warfare training, and one was even unearthed by moles.

Author Matthew Green’s exhaustive research and site visits take the reader on a most fascinating journey across Britain, delving into histories, archeology, urban design, the politics of discovery, and more, all the while bringing the occupants of these vanished towns to life by what we know of history, what they left behind, and in some cases, their own testimony. It’s a great read.

Thanks to the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, for granting this reviewer this opportunity to read this Advance Reader Copy (ARC), and thanks to NetGalley for helping to make that possible.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher W. W Norton for an advanced copy of this book on history and lost places.

Humans have a habit of romanticizing the lost, the forgotten the hidden and the passed over. Call it nostalgia, call it a longing for the days when "<Insert Country or Generation> knew how to work and things were great and wonderful." Some things are lost or put away for a reason, some are taken, some just disappear. Humans hate a vaccum. Finding something lost or omitted humans want to know more. Who, what when comes up and also are there more? I think it might come down to a person wonders, if I was to disappear, would I be missed, would anyone search, would anyone care if I was never found, or even worse found. Dr. Matthew Green in his book Shadowlands: A Journey Through Britain's Lost Cities and Vanished Villages writes about these places that maps might not show, bringing them back to life and giving them their history back and showing, yes somebody does care.

The book begins with a brief biography about the author, confessing that upon starting this book the author was feeling a bit lost himself. There is a bit of discussion about Dunwich, a good Lovecraft name, a village that fell into the sea when a cliff collapsed, the sound of its church bell still playing they say. This sets the mood for further cities destroyed by disaster, man made and natural and others that became ghost towns. Each town is given a biography with interesting stories, including the tow Capel Celyn that was basically made a reservoir for the needs of others water. Or a town that has taken on the many roles of enemy territory for British forces to train in from Germany, to Afghanistan.

The book is wonderfully sourced and extremely interesting, with facts and fiction about the town, and other tidbits. Dr. Green did his research finding as much first hand sources as he could digging deep in archives to try and get the real story, and not the one that passes for real. The writing is well nostalgic, there is no getting around that, with a lot of looking back but with a sense that everything can disapper or fade away, that we pride ourselves on remembering, but we can't remember what the last big news story was. There is a lot to think about at the end of this book.

A book for people who like lost places. And based on books selling and podcasts being listened to there are a lot. A very good history with a different look at places and what happen to them, be it plague or flood, or falling into the sea. Recommended for fans of Robert Macfarlane's books like The Old Ways or Annalee Newitz Four Lost Cities, or for fans of what is invisible in our own cities like the book 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Kurt Kohlstedt and Roman Mars.

I received an ARC of, Shadowlands, by Matthew Green. This was a text book instead of a novel. It was a little dry for me, but well written.

When we think of ghost towns or deserted villages, most of us think of the American West and deserted gold mining towns or the lost cities of the Maya, buried under layers of jungle. Green, however, takes readers on a tour of the lost and forgotten cities of the UK. He combines the backstory of the people involved in the “discovery” and exploration of these vanished places along with enough scholarly information to keep both the amateur archaeologist/layperson and those more learned, fascinated. The little known stories of the explorers were absolutely riveting