IN HER SHADOW
Mark Edwards
October 2018
Published by Thomas & Mercer
Paperback Original | £4.99
eBook | £3.98
Praise for previous novels by Mark Edwards
‘The supernatural hauntings will leave you questioning reality’ –The Sun
‘A white-knuckle, one-sitting read. The crime writers’ crime writer.
Edwards doesn’t need fancy flourishes or clever gimmicks to write the hell out of a story…’—RED
An exhilarating supernatural thriller from best-seller Mark Edwards, In Her Shadow draws on the question of what we believe, school-gate politics, and the topical themes of female sexual empowerment and the #MeToo movement. Mark’s signature style creates a chilling and thought-provoking narrative as ordinary people encounter the extraordinary.
In Her Shadow is about two sisters, Jessica and Isabel. Jessica is younger: the quieter, less successful sister. She is the mother of two children, happily married and living on a quiet housing estate in Beckenham.
Four years ago, Isabel – a successful sex therapist who lived with her city trader husband in a huge house – died after falling from the balcony of her home. It was ruled an accident.
But then Olivia, Jessica’s four-year-old daughter – who was born after Isabel died – begins to act strangely. She talks about her dead aunt and knows things she couldn’t possibly know. She accurately predicts terrible occurrences. She says she can see Isabel and that she knows a secret…leading Jessica to believe that her sister was murdered.
Jessica has to battle with her own scepticism and work out what is really going on. Was Isabel murdered? Is Olivia really being haunted by her dead aunt? And is Jessica putting her own family in terrible danger by investigating?
Researching In Her Shadow
Themes for ‘In Her Shadow’
Belief is a common thread that runs through Mark’s books – from the UFO obsessives in What You Wish For to the townsfolk who believe in a folk tale about a witch in The Retreat. It’s a theme Mark keeps returning to, and more so than ever in his latest book, In Her Shadow. What do you do when the impossible seems to be happening? Mark likes to make readers wonder what’s really going on – but, in the end, there is always a rational explanation.
This novel is also about male/female relationships. Isabel, a sex therapist clashes with a sleazy sex-pest photographer. This novel was written against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement with both Mark’s central characters as female.
Finally, the novel concerns school gate politics and relationships between parents and teachers, as well as the challenges of raising young children. Mark has four children, two of them under seven, and he works from home, so he knows all about those challenges.
Mark blended all these themes together, to create ‘In Her Shadow’.
The supernatural
Part of Isabel and Jessica’s back story is that they were supposedly haunted by a poltergeist when they were children. Their mother, Mo, firmly believes the poltergeist was real, Isabel says it’s nonsense and Jessica is torn. At the time, Mo brought in a paranormal investigator who also gets involved in the present day case. The paranormal investigator in Mark’s novel, Simon Parker, is a ludicrous but deadly serious figure who is based on an amalgam of different people. Mark spoke to a number of people about their different paranormal experiences.
#MeToo
In ‘In Her Shadow’ there is a sleazy photographer, Gavin, who has more than just a passing resemblance to Terry Richardson and men like him. While Mark was writing the book, the #MeToo movement, which he fully supports, kicked off. It is the actions of powerful men like Richardson that sets off a chain of events, leading ultimately to Isabel’s death. But the book ends with a form of justice being done and with Mark’s central female characters taking control.
About Mark Edwards
Author of the bestselling novel, The Magpies, Kissing Games, What You Wish For, Because She Loves Me,Follow You Home, The Devil’s Work, The Lucky Ones and a number of novels with Louise Voss, Mark has sold well over a million copies of his novels. He grew up on the south coast of England and started writing in his twenties while working in a number of dead-end jobs. He lived in Tokyo for a year and is a great admirer of Japanese writers and horror films. Mark lives near Wolverhampton, England, with his wife, their three children and a ginger cat.
