Bad things happen around Helen, including a horrific episode with a childhood friend that left her unable to attend school. She is haunted, perhaps even permanently damaged, by whatever drove her mother to flee the family. But that is not the real reason why Helen caves in and agrees to the terms of the will.
She might not know any of them, but she still feels responsibility. The pressure to come through for these people, who include her grandmother, a great uncle, and her mother’s two siblings and their spouses and children, is immense. But if Helen doesn’t comply, her extended family loses everything. As she and her mother fled Harrow a decade earlier, this is quite a challenge. The catch is that she has to remain on the premises, with no exceptions, for a full year. Soon after her estranged grandfather’s death, 17-year-old Helen is surprised to discover that he has left her the family estate and all of his extensive wealth (we’re talking $40 million). Mostly, These Fleeting Shadows is pitch-perfect reading for a dark and stormy night and the autumn book you have likely been waiting for. There are ghosts (or what seem to be ghosts), there are mysteries, there are secrets and lies and a legacy of dark medical experiments there is a journal written in code, and bones that must be collected, and a witch who is awesome, and no one can be trusted, and a heroine who – OH HOLY HELL – is not what she appears.
Yes, the house is haunted, and yes, the family is out for blood, but murder is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what author Kate Alice Marshall has planned for readers. These Fleeting Shadows is described by the publisher as ‘‘ The Haunting of Hill House meets Knives Out,’’ which is certainly apt but really nowhere close to what this creepy novel with its unforeseeable plot twists and complex characters is all about. These Fleeting Shadows, Kate Alice Marshall ( Viking Books for Young Readers 978-1-6, $18.99, 357pp, hc) August 2022.
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