Shade Ah, is there anything more relaxing than laying on the deck of a cruise s
hip, sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas in them, and getting lost in the pages of a good book? That's how I spent several enjoyable hours on my recent cruise. (Ignore the hair. I was on VACATION!!!) I love stories that expose a fantastic world coexisting with the one we live in, and that’s what I found in Shade. John Olson peels back the layers of our own society and gives us a chilling glimpse of a hidden world that is even more unsettling because it’s so believable. Hailey, a graduate student, is accosted by a knife-wielding attacker, and then saved by an unlikely hero – a giant homeless man. The tale she tells at the hospital lands her in the mental ward, where she’s diagnosed as schizophrenic and given anti-psychotic medications. But Melchi, her homeless rescuer, knows that Hailey’s attack wasn’t random. He has spent his life tracking an evil entity whose influence is spreading across the city of San Francisco, leaving a horrifying trail of murder in its wake. The story is intricate and deep, a good-versus-evil tale with enough twists to make it unique and fascinating. The evil exists on so many levels in this well-written tale, some of them elements that will thrill lovers of dark fantasy, and others recognizable because they really exist in the world in which we live. But don’t worry – the good comes from the One who will always triumph in the end.
On November 18,l I'm giving away the copy I read on my vacation. If you'd like to throw your name in the drawing, click here.
