This is the second book I've read by Chris Tomasini and it's even better than the first. I love fables set in our world and he excels at this. This is the first book of a trilogy.

The setting is Douro, in the province of Ontario, Canada, and spans two time periods, one during during WWI and the other in 2017. There are five sisters with magical powers: Agata, Katryn, Eva, Dorota and Magda. During WWI, Agata was using her magic to help the war effort, when she went into a coma. She was moved to Douro, Canada by the military for her safety while they waited for her to waken. Her young sisters didn't know about the coma. They had found the compound she was kept in, intending to rescue her, but were unable to remove her.

Years went by, and Jeremy Gardela, a descendent of one of the sisters, lives in Douro, and is drawn to the woods around Douro. There are legends about the wolves, and mysterious moon stones in the woods can supposedly be used to find a missing treasure. Jeremy has another gift - he can hear whispers in the dark, from people long dead. I'm looking forward to the next book.

I received an e-arc of this book from the author and voluntarily read and reviewed it.

A richly detailed fantasy with strong themes of family, this one is a must-read! Thank you to NetGalley and to Christopher Tomasini for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Review–Within This Darkness by Chris Tomasini Review by S. Weidner April 10, 2025

The book begins in 2017 with a fourteen-year-old boy who is struggling after his sister, Anne’s, death in a car accident. Jeremy Gardela was in the car with Anne driving and is still confused by what happened. Jeremy’s aunt Kasia suggests that their family has mysterious powers, and he might find answers in the dense forest near their home in small town Douro, Ontario, Canada. Kasia’s family have mostly passed away, but have lived in the area since the 1940’s.

Jeremy’s Dad is a wildlife preservation biologist at the White Pines Provincial Park. Jeremy has no fear of the forest and occasionally helps his father. However, rumors and local lore speak of accounts of strange stones, possible buried treasure and a wolf population in the forest. Tourists are not unusual to be seen in the area.

An intriguing story unfolds. The author, Chris Tomasini, has a wonderful way of sharing the emotions of the different characters in a way that you can feel! There will be two novels to follow and I know I will be anxious to read more of this story!

I received a free advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

Chris Tomasini's WITHIN THIS DARKNESS was the first Tomasini novel I've read and has introduced me to an exceptional writer. I loved every moment of Jeremy Gardela's grieving his older sister, venturing into the dark forest, and emerging with magic and mystery and a stranger. The story is twists and turns and wonderful moments -- a truly enjoyable read with heart stopping moments that made me think. I received a copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

My thanks to NetGalley and the author for a free copy of this novel to review.

Aimed at a teen-young adult readership, Chris Tomasini’s
most recent novel, the first of a proposed trilogy, transcends that category. The main character, fourteen-year-old Jeremy Gardela, has the classic ‘old soul.’ Yet while he seems innately more centred than most adolescents, Jeremy has had little choice but to grow up quickly. His older sister died in a mysterious car accident; his parents, not surprisingly, are having a terrible time dealing with the shock; his biologist father took a work contact in British Columbia, far from their home in the rural village of Douro, Ontario, as his way of coping. Responsible to a fault, Jeremy shoulders the burden of keeping his family from shattering further. The adults in his life seem to overlook the costs to his own developing psyche.

It’s easy to see how teenagers would relate to Jeremy, who wants to do right by everyone even if it means slighting his own ambitions. But, as adept as the author is at character development, the story is not primarily about his current situation. There is something unusual, even supernatural, beneath these very human challenges. And the mystery is not simply family lore. Their story, what is understood of it, has been preserved and embellished for nearly a century, and continues to draw tourists and treasure-seekers to the forests surrounding Douro.

The keeper of the family history is his father’s older sister Kasia, who, although memory-impaired by a stroke, summons up enough detail to pass on to Jeremy the duty of finding the so-called family treasure. Lost for nearly a century, it is supposed to have been left in an elaborately protected crypt deep in the forest.

A dual timeline allows the story to be told in 2017, Jeremy’s time, and at various points and places since 1915. In various ways, Jeremy becomes a messenger between ancient branches of the family and the disparate descendants. The four Obara sisters—Katryn, the eldest at nineteen, Agata, Eva, Dorota, and Magda—are his father’s Polish ancestors, among the first families to emigrate and till its rough terrain. They are Jeremy’s link to what has long been hidden, both figuratively and literally. And he must move quickly and stealthily, because there are ruthless people, possibly with military connections, in pursuit.

In this opening installment, Tomasini takes great care to establish the setting, introduce the characters, and hint at the deeper story, all of which he does masterfully. His depictions of the fictional town of Douro (not the Douro township of today, as he explains) evoke its quiet, neglected, isolation, the bane of every teenager. His evocation of the forest and the life within, especially the wolves with whom Jeremy is almost preternaturally connected, is very affecting. It is integral to the plot, and not just a physical location. Enough is uncovered of the storyline that will be pursued in the subsequent volumes to create suspense while allowing for some preliminary answers. There is much to enjoy for readers of all ages, especially those who love time-travel, world-shifting, and the potential to change historical outcomes. Who doesn’t?

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for an ARC of this book. It’s not the first book I’ve read from Tomasini, so I knew it was going to be good. Even though the book changes POVs from the early 1900s to 2017, it wasn’t difficult to follow. If I had to define its genre, I’d say historical fable.

When the book starts, the five Polish Obara sisters (who have inexplicable, mystical powers) are helping the Canadian/British government in WWI. But something goes wrong, and Agata becomes trapped in her body, unreachable. Over the years, she doesn’t age, and her sisters need to figure out what to do with her so as not to burden the younger generation.

When we’re introduced to Jeremy Gardela, we have no idea how he may be related to the Obara sisters. His father is a scientist who tracks the local wolves, and Jeremy helps with that endeavor. He’s comfortable in the wilderness and has no fear of the wolves. It’s almost as if they’re communicating with him. Only a few months ago, his sister Anne died in a car crash. Though it’s not immediately confirmed, it becomes clear that she was probably trying to practice the same kind of magic the Obara sisters did, but something went terribly wrong. Jeremy is devastated by the loss of his sister and closest friend. In her absence, Anne’s best friend Melissa has more or less taken him under her wing because he seems so lost.

There’s a military man with a name that cracked me up—Roger Shambling. He has been researching the Obara sisters and the area around Douro, Ontario where they once lived. He believes he has figured out the connection to current descendants and is determined to uncover the “treasure” of Douro, a fabled mystery missing a few clues. And this is how he ends up at Jeremy’s Aunt Kasia’s house. Kasia is disabled and suffering from mild dementia. When Shambling tries to question her about her relationship to the Obara’s she clams up and asks him to leave. But he unlocks a memory and she asks Jeremy to look for something for her, something hidden by her ancestors almost 100 years ago.

There’s a great description of Jeremy’s grief over the loss of his sister: “In the months after Anne’s death, the weight of her death had come to Jeremy in a series of ebbs and flows, like the ocean advancing upon, but then retreating from, a beach with the pull of the tides. At times it was as though he stood alone on the beach, and the depths of his loss rose from the sea and only managed to reach his ankles, or his knees. At other times the immensity of his sister’s death swept over him completely. From toes to chest, and it was all he could do not to give in and succumb completely to the silent depths of his loss.”

I suppose it’s a Young Adult novel, but it never felt like that to me. Jeremy, the hero of the story, is only 14-years-old. He’s independent, smart, and brave. He has a level of common sense that many his age do not. In short, he’s very mature. While searching for the “treasure” his aunt sent him to find, he faces challenges and grows as a person. He feels responsible for the death of his sister because he was in the car with her when she died, but his actions in this story offer him some sense of redemption.

It’s a unique story that straddles two time periods without getting confusing. Every chapter ended with just enough tension to make me want to continue reading through the next. I found myself stopping reading for the night when I fell asleep from exhaustion. If not for basic biological needs, I’d have read this in one sitting because it was so engrossing. I don’t think it’s over yet, either. It ended with a bit of a question about what will come next, and I’ll be here for it.

Holy smokes, this book is amazing! I thoroughly enjoyed Chris Tomasini's young adult, paranormal thriller Within This Darkness.

Chris Tomasini has an incredible skill of grabbing my attention from the very start of his stories, and this one is incredible. I'd have easily consumed another 200 pages without stopping lol, and I truly hope this is the start of a very long series.

The characters in Within This Darkness are completely engaging, and the storyline is so fascinating I literally could not put it down.

If you haven't read this wonderful author's novels yet, I highly recommend them all!

Within This Darkness
By Chris Tomasini

This book centers around sisters who immigrated to Douro, Canada during World War I from Poland. The Obara sisters – Katryn, Eva, Dorota, Agata and Magda – have magical powers which travel through bloodlines to family members in following generations. This is the first book of a trilogy that is considered a young adult series.

The power these sisters share allows them to do basically anything they can imagine. They can physically translate themselves to any place they can visualize. They can create things – clothes, food, and whatever else they need. They can even transport others if they are in physical contact.
The only thing they can't do is to interact with others, called walkers, because they are unable to "find" them mentally.

This is a very interesting story. It takes place in 2017, several generations after the original sisters are long dead. Anne and Jeremy Gardela, siblings, together with their Aunt Kasia, are the last remaining descendants of the original Obara sisters. Anne has just discovered her powers and is experimenting, when she is killed in a horrific car accident. Jeremy does not know about the family's magical history, but is deep in his grief for his sister.

Kasia, elderly and wheelchair bound, is visited by a man named Shambling, who has spent his life obsessed with the Obaras and their abilities. He wants to capture the remaining family members – but Kasia realizes he is a dangerous man. She will give him nothing. Thus the chase is on.

This book sets up the scene for the following two volumes. The cast of characters is introduced – including the wolves who play a large part in the story. The potential villains – another magical family in league with Hitler and the Nazis – has made an appearance. Now all that is left, after whetting the reader's appetite, is to wait for the second volume!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.