The Shadow Order

LoveReading4Kids Says

October 2022 Debut of the Month

Rich in painterly detail and chilling atmosphere, Rebecca F. John’s The Shadow Order is a first-class novel for 10+-year-olds who like to be challenged by entertaining fiction that shares the magic of ideas and words.

Time has passed since the city of Copperwell was placed under an Order that no one believed would last longer than a week — “a long, dark year later and it is still only the Constabulary who are permitted to move outside in daylight, trotting their enormous black horse noisily over the cobbles as they patrol for rule-breakers.”

In this perilous world, under the scrutiny of the Unified Government, Teddy, Betsy and Effie take a huge risk when they defy the Order to see the splendour of a sunrise. Mid marvel, a woman’s cries interrupt them. “I know what happened to the shadows,” she claims, chilling them to the bone. 

While everyone knows that The Shift transformed shadows from showing people’s physical form to revealing their inner secrets, no one know how or why this happened. When the woman is dragged away, the trio resolve to discover the truth, entangling them in a series of heart-stopping, high-risk, high-stakes adventures that’ll have readers rooting for them every atmospheric step of the way.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen is a writer, reviewer and workshop presenter whose lifelong love of books began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About The Shadow Order

One year on from the day the shadows shifted - showing people their truest selves rather than just their shapes - best friends Teddy, Betsy and Effie plan to risk all and watch the winter sun rise over Copperwell, in defiance of the Shadow Order.

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