The Shadows

Roald Dahl meets Neil Gaiman in this creepy but whimsical tale from a standout new voice.

Old Ms. McMartin is definitely dead. Now her crumbling Victorian mansion lies vacant. When eleven-year-old Olive and her dippy mathematician parents move in, she knows there's something odd about the place – not the least the walls covered in strange antique paintings. But when Olive finds a pair of old spectacles in a drawer, she discovers the most peculiar thing yet: She can travel inside these paintings to a world that's strangely quiet... and eerily like her own. Yet Elsewhere harbors dark secrets – and Morton, an undersize boy with an outsize temper.

As she and Morton form an uneasy alliance, Olive finds herself ensnared in a plan darker and more dangerous than she could have imagined, confronting a power that wants to be rid of her by any means necessary. It's up to Olive to save the house from the dark shadows, before the lights go out for good.

Jacqueline West weaves a tale at turns haunting, moving, and darkly funny, full of characters you won't soon forget.