#BlogTour-‘The Shadow Man’ by Mark Brownless

About the book…

Idyllic memories. A perfect childhood. A secret buried for thirty years.

None of us could remember why we drifted apart – we were always so close at school but then… you know. That was thirty years ago, and I hadn’t thought of my school friends in all that time – it was like I’d been made to forget.

And then the dreams started. Dreams that I knew I’d had before. Horrific dreams of fear and fire and death. Dreams of the Shadow Man, a ghostly urban legend who seemed to hang over my home village like an evil spirit. I’d begun to remember, my memories of back then becoming two-dimensional – a lie to mask what really happened – and I knew we’d have to go back. Back to Janey, because she never left.

What did happen to us back then, and do we really want to know? And what about the supernatural horror lurking in the shadows – could we face the Shadow Man again?

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the tour invite and Mark for my gifted paperback review copy of ‘The Shadow Man’

This story belongs to the urban legend field of horror, as you may have guessed by the title, with 5 childhood friends coming back to the village where they grew up to confront an evil figure they call ‘The Shadow Man.’ Out of the 5 women only one, Jane, has stayed there as a grownup-eerie dreams and odd feelings led her to reach out and bring her friends Philippa(Flip),Sally, Katie and Clara back home.

Convinced that she may have grief related hallucinations, possibly exacerbated by the use of psychedelic mushrooms, the women all return with a plan of placating Janey and going on their merry way. But the longer they stay, the more they remember and Laurendon suddenly seems to be a place of danger, once more….

It’s an interesting tale that Mark Brownless whips up for his sophomore horror novel, it had enough interest to keep me going till the very last page. He writes women’s voices better than a lot of authors I won’t mention here, and at the start, you aren’t sure whether ‘The Shadow Man’ is a legendary figure or one conjured by the girls as children. This is because 2 very suspicious deaths occur after the girls are wronged, 2 seemingly inexplicable deaths.

The narrative flies back and forth between the past and present centering the fictional village of Laurendon as an example of an ‘any town’ , very recognisable, full of small minds and open to superstition ( I live in a town similar and if it was found to have been constructed on the site of a Hellmouth, it absolutely would not surprise me).

Mark plays with the notion that this figure could have been conjured by mushroom tea drinking teens , he adds veracoty to the idea that maybe it’s a conduit of ideas by having the girls research this figure and find he existed in other places. Whether it is a demonic entity is kept at bay, there is the merest inkling and suspicion dotted through the novel until the final, lakeside confrontation.

It’s a good book, a quick read with interesting ideas. It wasn’t as suspenseful or horrifying as I hoped it would be but there is talent in the writing which has me looking forward to what he does next!

About the author…

Mark Brownless lives and works in Carmarthen, West Wales.

He has been putting ideas on paper for some years now but only when the idea for ‘The Hand Of The Angel’ came to him in the autumn of 2015 did he know he might be able to write a book. Mark likes to write about ordinary people being placed in extraordinary circumstances, is fascinated by unexplained phenomena, and enjoys merging thriller, science fiction and horror.
Mark’s new novel, The Shadow Man is a terrifying horror thriller imagining what would happen if you found out the memories of your childhood were untrue, and that something sinister was lurking behind the facade of your life. Could you face what had happened back then? Could you face The Shadow Man.

Mark is also fascinated by myths and legends such as those of Robin Hood and King Arthur. This has culminated in the release of his short story series, Locksley, a Robin Hood story.

Links-

Website : http://www.markbrownless.com/

Twitter : @MarkBrownless