Chasing Shadows

From the author of Split: an exciting, ambitious novel, with an innovative graphic novel component.

Corey, Holly, and Savitri are freerunners. They climb buildings, leap between rooftops, and throw moves that would make superheroes jealous. They are fast and strong and invulnerable.

Then a random act of violence shatters their world. A gunman shoots at their car, leaving Corey dead, Holly in a coma, and Savitri the sole witness to the crime.

Savitri just wants Holly to live. To come back to her so they can grieve for Corey together. But when Holly wakes, she's not interested in mourning. She wants to track down Corey's killer. She wants Corey back. And she thinks she knows how to get him.

In this intense and gripping novel, Swati Avasthi is looking at the impact of violence on our lives, and also at the boundaries and elasticity of friendship—how far will we walk with a friend, even when we know they are going down a bad road. She tells the story from two points of view. Savitri—a girl struggling to understand why her friend keeps pushing her away. And Holly—a girl so overcome by the loss of her twin that she invents an alternate reality where she has superheroic powers and can rescue her brother from a shadowy land of the dead.

As Holly slips into madness, her story is told in comic-book panels that show the world as she sees it. It's a brilliant way to let the format reflect the character's state of mind, and marks this book as something special and new.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR

SWATI AVASTHI received her MFA from the University of Minnesota. When she isn't writing, she works as a creative writing instructor.

CRAIG PHILIPS is a successful comics artist, cartoonist and illustrator. He lives in New Zealand.