When journalist Rhea Linden returns to the crumbling village of her childhood, she isn’t chasing a headline she’s chasing memory. A chapel that shouldn’t exist. A girl frozen in time. A house that exhales her name through its walls.

Sent to profile the town’s fading folklore, Rhea stumbles on a rumor that won’t let go: some children never cast shadows after dark. The locals dodge her questions. The records don’t add up. And something has been waiting for her to come back.

As she retraces the forgotten corners of her youth, what she once called imagination starts to feel real. Whispers slide through the floorboards. Dolls shift when she isn’t looking. A mirror reflects more than her face. Pages in her notebook fill with words she never wrote details only someone inside the house could know.

But the deeper she digs, the less certain she becomes. Is she the one documenting the story, or the one being written?

With reality bending under her feet and a presence shadowing every move, Rhea must confront what was left behind and what never let her go.

Some stories don’t end. They wait. And they write back.

Would you return to the place that erased you if it swore to tell the truth?

***

This novel is part of SHADOWKIN: The Shadow of Death, a chilling series of interconnected standalone paranormal thrillers, where every shadow hides a secret and every story brings you closer to the darkness.

In the hidden alleys of forgotten towns and the broken edges of memory, the Shadowkin wait. They’re not just creatures in the dark they’re shaped from guilt, grief, and the secrets we can’t bury.

SHADOWKIN: The Shadow of Death drags you into a world where walls breathe, shadows whisper, and silence presses like a weight. Each tale begins with a quiet unease and ends with a truth you don’t want to face: the Shadowkin aren’t strangers at all, but the pieces of ourselves we fear the most.

Enter these standalone stories where every truth cuts deeper, and every ending opens another door.

Occult & Supernatural