Kate Alice Marshall is one of my favorite writers. I'll always read/listen to whatever she writes. These Fleeting Shadows was no exception. Her writing is atmospheric and lyrical, the premise unique and affecting..

One of the best things about her writing is her ability to take strange characters and make them wholly relatable in the oddest of circumstances. Her world building is always phenomenal and with the addition of multi-dimensional characters, it lends the story a richness that I find hard to resist.

I think this is a book that will appeal to any fan of KAM or any fan of gothic horror with queer rep and a dark theme that carries throughout.

My thanks to Penguin Teen for this DRC

These Fleeting Shadows is a book that haunts your every thought and will try to consume your soul if you are not careful.

Kate had me utterly hooked from that first line. I mean, introducing elements of lies and unreliability in our narrator straight away always works for me. It instantly sets the tone for the book – where you will have to pay attention and question everything around you. Even the last line of the first chapter is such an ominous yet completely gripping one. You can sense the impending destruction and doom, yet you cannot look away. This book is like a lit match, about to blow everything up.

I adored the way Kate pulled in the horror and supernatural elements. They feel like an evocative depiction of intergenerational trauma and a way to speak to the silenced victims of privilege who are erased from their own history. It adds a unique layer to this Knives Out esque thriller surrounding inheritance, family and a blood drenched history they are trying to keep buried. The plotting is superb, with plenty of surprises and shocking moments for you to uncover. Trust me, you cannot see this coming.

It has an intensely Gothic feel to the book. This particularly manifests in the way Harrow becomes its own character. It seeps into every person and their particular motives and thought processes. They are all products of this claustrophobic, deeply flawed environment, yet they could also choose to break the cycle if they so wished. This book really digs into that cycle of trauma and death that enshrouds the book and its crumbling house. As a part of this, there is an intriguing exploration of grief and guilt that struck a chord with me. There is also a huge exploration of forming your own family and the strength found in this process.

These Fleeting Shadows is another nefarious book from a voice to watch within YA horror.

When you’ve fled a house in your youth, the last thing you want to hear is you have to go back. There’s a fear of Harrow house, and rightfully so. The house is labyrinthine, and you are locked in your room at night. But when weird things start happening to Helen, at least, weirder than usual for Harrow house, she needs to investigate what is going on and why her grandfather wanted her back at Harrow.

If atmospheric were an awards category, Marshall would win the highest. This is an atmospheric, creeptacular novel. The story leaves you in the dark a good deal of the time. However, it is through that confusion that sits down on your chest and keeps you reading. Because the more Helen learns, the more bizarre things get. Amidst Helen’s desire to find out what is going on, there is some romance at play which adds a bit of lightness to the story. With some characters to love and some characters you love to hate, this is a truly twisted read. Thank you, TBR Tours and Penguin Group, for sending along this super fun read!

Light spoilers are ahead …

Woah.
So the elevator pitch for Kate Alice Marshall’s These Fleeting Shadows is “The Haunting of Hill House meets Knives Out.” Considering I haven’t actually seen either of those works, I can’t say for sure, but that sounds darn accurate.

While this book certainly has its fair share of the supernatural, that’s not really what makes it scary. There are no jump scares in These Fleeting Shadows, but ritual filicide of daughters is pretty horrifying, no?

Yes, as with many genre works, Marshall’s novel is more than meets the eye. The cycles of family traumas that Marshall deals with in These Fleeting Shadows are made literal cycles in the text. What could have become facile in the wrong hands becomes a deftly maneuvered sleight of hand layered with an empowering message.

The story is told in this utterly bizarre, feverish dream-like loop of lost time. I kinda wanted to live in it, even amongst all the tragedy and chaos.

Woah woah.
It’s not often I’m surprised by books anymore — gosh, that makes me sound like a jerk — but I so wasn’t expecting These Fleeting Shadows to go where it does. The twists were such a pleasant surprise! So much so that I found myself wondering until the very end who was gonna screw over whom else. And how. Which, in a horror novel, is a good thing.

Woah woah woah.
These Fleeting Shadows is deeper than this, but oh man, would it be such a good bad horror movie. The initial premise is definitely silly enough that someone could run with it Some of the visual images are just so out there that I kinda want someone to take it and ruin it by making it a terrible B movie? Is that awful?

I mean absolutely no disrespect to this book — just the opposite.

Should you read it?
Heck, yah! If you’re a fan of spooky things, you’ll adore this. Do you just like queer YA? Great! You’ll love this, too! I can really see fans of Tessa Gratton‘s Night Shine getting into These Fleeting Shadows. Unless you really can’t do any kind of gore, you’ll probably devour this book.

P.S. I want — nay — I demand that These Fleeting Shadows be made into a streaming service Halloween-time horror movie.

These Fleeting Shadows is out on August 9. Pick up a copy at your local indie book store or library. ​💀​👤​📚



Content warnings: Blood, body horror, murder, child death/murder, queerphobia, abuse, sexual assault (referenced) and lobotomy.

Book Review: These Fleeting Shadows by Kate Alice Marshall
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They say this is for fans of Knives Out and The Haunting of Hill House, but I'd also like to throw in fans of The Inheritance Games into the mix. We follow Helen Vaughn, a strange girl who comes from an even stranger family; a family that Helen's mother had taken her from when she was young for reasons that Helen can't remember. But, when her grandfather passes away, Helen and her mother return to Harrowstone Hall for the funeral, only to discover that Helen's grandfather has left her the house and a boatload of money. However, there's a catch: Helen most remain at Harrowstone Hall for an entire year and cannot leave under any circumstances. But there's more to Harrow than meets the eye and Helen knows that if she is to survive the year, she must uncover the truth behind the house, a truth that everyone seems to be hiding from her.

This book is full of mystery, as we find out more and more as the main character does. It's full of deceitful family members, greed, and all the things that go bump in the night. It reads fast and keeps you trapped within the walls of thr house as you uncover its secrets and unfold the darkness that's within.

Thank you to @penguinteen for allowing me an early read of this book. I'm so excited for this to hit the shelves August 9th, so all of you can pick up your own copy. Trust me, this is the PERFECT read to add to your spooky reads list coming up this fall.

I was hoping for creepy gothic, haunted house vibes and MAN did this deliver!

These Fleeting Shadows is a YA gothic horror novel about a teen girl who inherits a mysterious estate after the death of her estranged grandfather. But in order to inherit, she must remain on the grounds for an entire year and then undergo a ritual where the house will accept her as mistress. But not everyone wants her to inherit and something dark is lurking in the history of the house.... Also there is a very pretty witch girl who lives in a cottage on the grounds. *ahem*

This was creepy, disorienting, sometimes disturbing, and a major theme of the book is missing and murdered girls. It's also about cycles of violence, tainted heritage, and the corruption of power. And how, throughout history, agency and personhood have been denied those who are different, misunderstood, or marginalized. And thus their abuse justified. It's not a light book, but it the execution is excellent and I found the conclusion to be very satisfying. Definitely a fan. I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Content warnings include body horror, murder, gore, violence, abuse, misogyny, grief, references to sexual assault, experimentation, mutilation.

Due for release early August 2022, thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this prior to publication.
Touted as Knives Out meets The Haunting of Hill House, this was always likely to be a book that perplexed and entertained. With clear nods to the Gothic, this was a story that started oddly and just got stranger.
When her grandfather dies, Helen Vaughan goes with her mother to the ancestral home (known as Harrow). She learns that she is due to inherit millions and the property on the condition that she lives in the house for a year and is not rejected.
From start to finish we never know who to trust. Helen grows sick and starts to see things that make little sense. She is determined to get to the bottom of these visions, but we soon see that this could be a more dangerous scenario than envisioned.
I loved the fact this was based on a story that sounds even weirder and creepier than the one Marshall delivers. Deftly blending horror and mystery, this was a story that both puzzled and entertained.

In this thriller/mystery similar to Mexican Gothic and Inheritance Games, Helen Vaughan arrives at her family home, Harrow House, following her grandfather's death. Though Helen wants to escape the strange connection she feels to the house, she learns that her grandfather has left Harrow to her, and she must stay or the family will lose the entirety of their inheritance. As the house pulls Helen in, she soon finds that her relatives are after much more than the money.

This book was a fast-paced and fun read. It was definitely a page turner, with plenty of twists and good pacing throughout. Helen was likable as a main character, though Desmond was also an entertaining character to read. The relationship with Bryony felt a bit hasty, but for two pretty socially awkward teenagers, it didn't seem ingenuine to us and we found that the two ultimately had good chemistry.

We did find that the plot became very convoluted at some points. Between the Other, the figments, the old experiments, the Harrow Witch, Helen's strange abilities, and the complex family tree, there were a lot of forces at play, and sometimes it was tricky to keep track of. The ending was a bit complicated too with a lot introduced very quickly (and a twist we weren't expecting at all). Overall, it didn't take away much from our enjoyment of the story, though do be prepared to keep track of a decent amount of characters and lore.

This was a fun read in the end, and we'd definitely recommend it to fans of books like Inheritance Games and Mexican Gothic, or movies like Knives Out and Ready or Not.

What worked: Creepy, surreal story of Helen Vaughan and a mysterious ancestral home filled with deadly secrets. This story had an almost Edgar Allan Poe feel going for it with ghostly mysteries that keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Helen doesn't get why her mother is not too happy to return to her family home after the death of her father. Helen doesn't have too many memories of life there except for one unfortunate accident with a childhood peer. There are hints throughout the story that might be hard to connect to the bigger piece of the puzzle. A few times I did have to go back and check what was happening. The surreal sensation is where the story reminded me of a few shorts by Edgar Allan Poe. Helen is a complex teen whose struggles to make sense of the atmospheric feel of Harrowstone Hall compel her to find out more. This happens when after her grandfather's death she's given the Hall but only on the condition, that she stays for a year. To say weird things occur during her stay is an understatement. One of these is how she finds herself outside and covered in dirt.

Her estranged family has its own secrets. Secrets that hint at a deadly past. Young girls have been missing. These victims have ties to the Hall.

Helen does find a journal with entries from the mid-1800s that give clues on the origins of the house that involve horrific practices the family has done to keep Harrowstone Hall.

There's a queer love interest with Bryony who is known as the 'Hallow Witch'. Bryony has her own secrets.

Engaging, spooky horror story where a girl finds out that not is all that it seems. She needs to solve a mystery that will affect not only her family but herself as well.

Kate Alice Marshall has proven her supernatural horror chops with the incredible Rules for Vanishing and haunting Our Last Echoes—now she’s returned to make your skin crawl with Gothic-inspired These Fleeting Shadows. Unlike her previous two YA horror novels in which the main characters embarked on an adventure that traversed a number of different locations, this story is mostly confined to our heroine Helen’s ancestral estate…but as it comprises the ominously named Harrowstone Hall with its sprawling grounds, gloomy surrounding forest and the occasional dilapidated ruin, who could ask for more!

The blurb compares this book to The Haunting of Hill House and Knives Out…it’s certainly very reminiscent of the former, but in the interest of managing expectations, the Knives Out comparison isn’t a reference to the light-hearted black humour of that movie, it really only applies to the cut-throat nature of a privileged entitled family upon discovering that their family fortune has been bestowed upon an outsider. Helen is the major beneficiary of her grandfather’s will, however to inherit Harrowstone Hall and his fortune with it, the terms of the will enforce her confinement to Harrow for an entire year, otherwise she is left with nothing.

This may sound like a simple enough task to complete, but living in a labyrinthine house that defies rational navigation, surrounded by resentful and possibly murderous relations plus capricious spectral figments and vicious dangerous creatures lurking in the shadows, Helen has her work cut out for her to make it out alive.

Luckily she isn’t entirely on her own—Helen’s cousins Desmond and Celia are willing to ally with her, providing much-needed support throughout the book. And while this is mostly a family affair, a love interest is introduced in the form of the Harrow Witch aka Bryony, the groundskeeper’s daughter. Her interactions with Helen start off fraught with tension and hostility, but she gradually warms to Helen almost against her will, helping to protect her from the dangers of Harrow and joining forces to investigate the mysterious deaths of girls in Harrow’s past.

These Fleeting Shadows is much like Harrowstone Hall—it’s illogical, defies explanation, twists and bends around the reader, consuming us and warping our mind until we lose track of everything we think we know. It feels like being caught in a fever dream where there is no way out but through. The story is told in the first-person from Helen’s perspective so we’re right with her every baffled step of the way, and the author masterfully wields the unreliable narrator trope to make certain scenes hit hard with horrifying disorientation and numbing despair.

Kate Alice Marshall’s previous work delved into cosmic horror which is a thrilling and underexplored area of YA horror, but I was unprepared for the body horror incorporated into this book. Be wary of eating while you read this one as some sections are liable to put you off your food! The juxtaposition of vast incomprehensible forces against the very personal and grotesque nature of Helen’s illness as her body breaks down the longer she resides at Harrow shouldn’t work, these are two completely separate arcs that don’t appear to have any correlation, but the genius of this book is how deftly the author winds together seeming disparate elements to form a cohesive whole. My jaw literally dropped at a couple of plot twists that redefined everything that came beforehand and I had to mentally applaud; this is one of those books that will be a real treat to re-read just to spot the clues and foreshadowing once you know the ending.

What left me wanting was the relationship between Helen and her mother—the opening chapters presented them as a tight-knit unit and having her mother as an ally would’ve added a lot more emotional resonance further along in the story, but it’s puzzling that her mother basically disappears for most of the book. The relationship between the heroine of Our Last Echoes and her mother had a much greater impact on the reader despite the latter being dead for years and barely having an on-page presence; I expected more from the mother-daughter dynamic in this book with Helen’s mother being alive, so it was disappointing that was largely dropped.

If you’re familiar with this author, you won’t need any encouragement to pick up this book! For new readers, the pitch is this—a sapphic Gothic-inspired horror that mixes elements of Haunting of Hill House and Ready or Not in a strange and monstrously beautiful, uniquely inventive story. The creepy atmosphere, our heroine’s mysterious past and corrupt family history combined with paranormal occurrences and a bizarre pattern of inexplicable deaths make for a darkly compelling read.

I really wantedt to like this book. It sounded so good. But I just found it very hard to keep up with. I felt like it confused me. So I did not finish.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed this book! There were so many twists and turns in the story that I wasn’t expecting and made it really fun to read. It had creepy and scary parts but also had parts that were full of heart which I loved.

These Fleeting Shadows is spooky and weird. It's one of those books where you're excited to get to the end to figure out what's going on..... but when I got to the end of this one, I was still like WTH is going on. There just wasn't a big payoff at the end.

The love story was actually kind of cute, and I saw a lot of promise in the premise, but I do think a book that's geared towards young adults needs more logic in it. I could see my students who like Stephen King understanding this, but I could see more being like me (WTH is going on, where's the payoff at the end)...

I want to thank the publishers for my ARC copy but I was only able to get to 41% before I gave up. The plot seemed a bit like Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes with a dash of Birdbox throw in. I got bored and just could not continue on. I wish Kate Alice Marshall the best and hope other readers find this a worthy read but it just was not for me.

I really enjoy Marshall’s writing, and the concepts are compelling. However, I always feel like theres something off. The plot goes one step further than I want it to. (Maybe that just means I want more ambiguity in my horror). This was good though! I’ll always pick up books by this author.

This is a weird mix of The Inheritance Games and House of Hollow, but I think horror fans will love it. It's creepy and full of betrayal, gaslighting, and confusion. I'm still at a loss for words with exactly what *happened*, but it's unlike anything I've ever read so there's that.

*Thank you to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review*

Check out the aesthetic video I made for this book on TikTok & Instagram @katherinebichler. See the links below: ⬇️

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRABqXjJ/?k=1

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cgb8sh...

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
4.5/5 STARS

This is a YA paranormal thriller/horror. Since it isn’t my typical read, I went into it with an open mind and I really enjoyed it.

Helen’s grandfather dies, leaving her a mansion & inheritance in his will. The catch? She must survive living in the house for one year. Things are not what they seem as she encounters strange creatures and tries to solve the mystery of the house before it’s too late.

This book was the right amount of spooky and strange for me. It was unpredictable with a twist at the end. If you liked The Haunting of Hill House, you will enjoy this book.

There was a bit of forced romance that I thought the book didn’t need. It didn’t quite go with the story line. But other than that, it was good!

Thank you Penguin Teen & Viking Books for Young Readers for the advance reader copy! 🖤👻🏚

This book was good but it wasn’t my favorite and I usually love all things horror. I just felt a bit disconnected with the story. The premise is what originally drew me in Knives out meets Haunting of Hill House. It didn’t feel much like Knives out I was waiting for more witty twists and high stakes but it fell into more the horror.

I enjoyed the characters and the plot but the romance felt a little Insta love. I did enjoy the clues and the mystery surrounding the Vaughan’s and Harrow house. The weird things that are happening to Helen the main character are what kept me reading but the pacing at times felt slow and I often found myself putting the book down and had to remind myself to pick it back up.

Overall it was okay for a YA horror and at times had some creepy elements. I would say give this a chance if you’re looking for a weird creepy sapphic horror book.

Thank you PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group, Viking Books for Young Readers for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was really intrigued by the premise of These Fleeting Shadows, especially since it seemed to give off the same vibes as This Poison Heart, The Dead and the Dark and Knives Out but unfortunately it just fell flat for me. I spent a good chunk of the book confused about what was going on, but did appreciate the final twist.

Admittedly, I think horror may not be my thing, but I found the pace to be far too slow and meandering. Somehow, Helen's memory lapses didn't speed the story ahead but made it feel longer, possibly because clearly action happened that we needed to backtrack to? The mythology-building was OK. I did like the reveal, but thought while the precedent for the memory lapses had been set, the build-up to Helen's plan wasn't well set up. The romance story was very charming and well-handled.