Den of Shadows Series, Book 5
Den of Shadows
by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Sixteen-year-old Erin Misrahe just wants to be like everyone else in her new school. But Erin has more to worry about than passing AP Chemistry or making friends. In times of stress, she has always been overcome by her alter ego, Shevaun, whose violent behavior wreaks havoc on those around her. Erin can never remember anything about these episodes, and she's grateful to have been spared them for a while.
But when a protective friend comes back into Erin's life, he insists that Shevaun is a vampire who actually exists apart from Erin. Shevaun has dangerous allies, like the handsome witch Adjila—and they're determined to sever Shevaun's connection to Erin once and for all.
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From the book ERIN WOKE ONCE AGAIN IN A DARK ROOM, BUT this time it didn't feel like a dream. She thought she had fallen asleep in her father's car, which was unusual. The only times she really remembered blacking out like that . . .
Where was she?
What had she done?
She pushed herself up and then gasped. Her body ached. She shoved her hair out of her face and groped blindly for the edge of the bed, and from there for a lamp. She needed light. She needed–
Don't freak out again, Erin. Deep breaths. She consciously controlled her breathing as she located the bedside table.
Instead of finding a lamp, she touched a small box, maybe for jewelry. A . . . pair of handcuffs? A little less carefully and a little more frantically, she searched further, and then she bit back a scream as she grabbed something sharp, cutting her hand.
She recoiled, hugging her injured hand to her chest, and ended up in the middle of the dark room. She shuffled forward, her uninjured hand in front of her face, until she found the wall and breathed a sigh of relief.
The relief was short-lived. In that moment, a door behind her opened, letting in a stream of muted but much-appreciated light and a man she had never seen before.
He looked a little older than Erin–maybe a college student–though he had a quality about him that made Erin think he was older than that. His skin was caramel-bronze, and his short, tousled hair was the color of French roast coffee beans.
What didn't match were his silver and blue eyes, which made her think of a blue jay dipped in mercury. He didn't look like anyone she remembered ever knowing, but at the same time he seemed impossibly familiar. Those eyes, focused on her with apparent concern, seemed like eyes she must have stared into for hours once upon a time, in another life.
Maybe she had.
This thought made Erin's skin crawl.
"Where am I?" she asked, in a voice so muted she could barely recognize it as her own.
"In your room, in your Sète home." He looked worried now. "Do you remember how you got here?"
Sète? She had never heard of it.
Now he really looked confused. "Shevaun, why don't you sit down? You were badly hurt. This is the first time you've been conscious in days, and I think you're still
"What did you call me?" But Erin already knew. She knew because she had heard the name before. It was written in all her medical records.
"Shevaun, sit down–"
He moved to touch her arm and she jerked back.
"I've got to go. I have to leave, now."
"Shevaun–"
"Don't call me that!"
As she remembered what he had said, she demanded, "Hurt–how? How was I hurt? What did I do?" Erin didn't want to go back to the ward, to lockdowns and body searches and waking up in restraints, but wasn't this worse? At least when she woke up in isolation, she knew where she was and who she was with.
"Calm down," the man was saying, but she couldn't. She knew what "Shevaun" was capable of; any friend of that woman's was no friend of hers. Erin only needed to glance at the bedside table–and the handcuffs, knife, and bottle of wine there–to know that.
The man reached for her again. This time she shoved him, discovering in her panic a strength she hadn't known she possessed, and suddenly the...
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes wrote her first novel, In the Forests of the Night, when she was 13 years old. Other books in the Den of Shadows series are Demon in My View, Shattered Mirror, Midnight Predator, all ALA Quick Picks for Young Adults. She has also published the five-volume series The Kiesha'ra: Hawksong, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror List Selection; Snakecharm; Falcondance; Wolfcry; and Wyvernhail. Visit her online at www.ameliaatwaterrhodes.com.
Perfectly pedestrian storytelling marks this newest from the former teen phenom. Erin has spent most of her life institutionalized for schizophrenia. After years of therapy and medication, she has stabilized enough that she can attend classes at the public high school, where she develops a friendship with Marissa, her spunky classmate. But the 16-year-old must doubt her hard-fought sanity as things go awry. She starts having nightmares in which she wakes up as Shevaun, a powerful vampire living in France with her witch lover, Adjila. Erin recognizes and loathes Shevaun as her violent alter ego from her years in the hospital, but she is powerless to sever the connection. When she sees Marissa transform into a tiger in the woods, Erin is sure she 's having another psychotic break. Erin needs the help of Marissa, Adjila and her fellow mental patient/boyfriend Sassy in order to keep Shevaun from destroying her. Awkward phrasing weighs down the muddled story line and the characters are too thinly developed to be very sympathetic, but this fast-paced narrative will be a quick read for devotees of the genre. (Horror. 11-14)
(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
Gr 7 Up-Erin Misrahe, 16, has spent almost half of her life in and out of psychiatric wards. With the help of serious drugs, she has managed to stay out of the hospital for more than two years and is attending classes at a local high school. But the dreams of blood and violence and being a completely different person have started again, and it seems that her alter ego, Shevaun, may be something more than just a figment of her imagination. With the help of her shape-shifter friends and Shevaun's longtime lover, Erin and Shevaun fight to separate their minds and memories and try to figure out what happened to connect them in the first place. What sets this novel apart from the current rash of teenaged-vampire-angst fiction are the two narratorsErin, grown used to, and even comfortable with, the idea that she is mentally ill; and Shevaun, willing to do anything to protect the family she's cobbled together. Secondary characters are equally compelling, and the world that Atwater-Rhodes has created is believable and intriguing. Hand this novel to the multitudes going through Stephenie Meyer withdrawal and they won't be disappointed."Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library"
Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Grades 7-10 Thanks to her arsenal of pills, 16-year-old schizophrenic Erin has kept her violent alter ego, Shevaun, at bay long enough to start public school and make friends. Shevaun, however, is not a construct of Erins mind, as shes always believed; Shevaun is a 500-year-old vampire living with her witch lover, Adjila. When Erin wakes up in Shevauns body for the first time in 18 months, Adjila becomes aware of this strange connection and determines to sever it. First, though, they must find Erin and discover why the link exists. Erins perspective, skewed through her perceived mental illness, is an interesting one, and Sassy, her shapeshifter friend, adds a refreshing dose of humor. Atwater-Rhodes sets up an intriguing ideathat supernatural powers can be misdiagnosed as mental illness by the mundane worldbut ultimately fails to fully explore it. While the link between Erin and Shevaun is fascinating, the particulars are so convoluted and rapidly introduced that the explanation is confusing, as is the resolution. Still, the authors fans will likely enjoy this supernatural tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)
Random House Children's Books