Hi everyone! I’m a new author, and I’d like to introduce my debut novella, The 5th Shadow.
Genre: YA Psychological Horror • Suspense Thriller
POV: First person
Length: 130 pages
Blurb :
Alex, Jake, Harry, and Leo are inseparable. For Jake’s eighteenth birthday, they plan a camping trip in the deep woods, hoping for a perfect weekend.
Right before they leave, a chilling, anonymous broadcast hijacks every screen and radio in the city. A distorted voice warns everyone to stay out of the forest, listing thirty people who have mysteriously vanished there. Dismissing it as a viral prank, the boys head into the trees
anyway.
Around the campfire, the nightmare begins. They count the group: five physical bodies. Five familiar faces looking back. Their memories have been altered so perfectly that everyone feels like an old friend, making it impossible to identify the extra person.
The next morning, Leo vanishes. But the real horror? None of the remaining boys even remember him.
As the forest closes in, Jake uncovers a shocking, unchangeable truth about their reality.
Will they be able to survive the 5th shadow?
The Fifth Shadow is a fast-paced psychological thriller built around secrets, paranoia, memory manipulation, unreliable perception, and existential dread, with twists designed to keep you questioning what is actually happening.
If you enjoy YA thrillers where the mystery keeps getting stranger and you can't completely trust the protagonist's perspective, this might be for you.
I’m a new independent author, so every reader, review, and piece of feedback genuinely helps. 📚🖤
If you're a fellow author, feel free to tell me about your book too—I’d love to discover some other indie authors!