Watch the Shadows by Robin Winters ~ Book Tour: Review & Excerpt

April 01, 2015

Watch the Shadows by Robin Winters ~ Book Tour: Review & Excerpt

Publisher: White Whisker Books (April 20, 2015)
ISBN: 978-0-9863265-0-9
Category: Suspense/Thriller
Tour Date: March 16-April 30, 2015
Available in: Print & ebook, 176 Pages

In the college town of Isla Vista, California, small, odd things start happening. Science-geek Nicole notes the crows are leaving. Meg Burdigal can’t find her tabby cat, Schrand. Brian the postman feels uneasy at the rustlings, the shadows he’s seen at the edge of his vision on his delivery route in town. Now Nicole sees fewer and fewer homeless in the park. Using her knowledge of biology and forensics, Nicole searches for answers—but will anyone take the horror she finds seriously? In this unusual thriller, 'Watch the Shadows', author Robin Winter explores where the ordinary slams against the extraordinary.

Excerpt

If Lincoln made it in time, Meg and she could walk home. Nicole didn’t know how she felt about that; to go back into the open again with poor visibility seemed dangerous. Yet this place with these people made her uncomfortable in so many ways that she couldn’t even hope to count them. The list started off with guilt, because she had a home to go to. Because she passed the homeless every day without a smile, or a quarter out of her slim allowance and vanishing summer job earnings. Then there was the smell—every time her skin prickled the least bit, Nicole found herself looking to check, some part of her mind certain that she’d picked something up—a flea, lice, or an unnamed disease.

She’d noticed how many of the men and women who came in looked like they wore every bit of clothing in their possession whether for warmth or to keep their goods from thievery, Nicole couldn’t guess. Skins bronzed not with a simple day’s worth of sweat, but with weeks of outdoor burnish. Some wore clothes so stiff-sleeked with dirt, skin oils, perspiration, that the fabric had an odd gloss, a smell like rancid butter, excrement and vomit. What did you do for toilet paper when you were homeless? She thought she recalled some folk carrying rolls among their goods.

Maybe primitive man smelled like this, before parts of civilization fell in love with hot water, soap and flush toilets. As if on cue, a thin man by Meg’s desk bent close to her. Nicole admired Meg then, who looked at him as one looks at any man, a slight smile of interest, without a back lean to her body, though he looked too close for comfort. One of those who didn’t know what the approachable radius should be. He was black, spidery tall like a daddy long-legs.

“I got a shower this morning. The water kind of leaked all over me, and it was mucho frio, Mrs. Meg, but I washed. I really washed. With a bit of soap, genuine Ivory, that I found at the laundromat. My first shower in three weeks, Mrs. Meg, but that sure is one good thing. Ain’t it just.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Meg said. “It sure is, Tony.”

As if one shower in three weeks could get a man clean. Nicole bet the dirt ground deep in, right down into the pores as unwashed day followed day. You’d have to steam clean, sauna maybe, then hit the showers three, four times to get a man like that clean. Meg smiled, nodding as though she could imagine exactly what he meant, and agreed how good it felt.

How many people here now? A dozen men, one sitting up with his back to a pillar, what was he doing? Rolling a joint? A cigarette?

“Hey, man, you can’t do that here,” someone among the long, prone shapes said.

“Who’s making noise over there?”

“There’s no smoking indoors.”

“But I’m rolling my own.”

“No smoking anything, kid, in here. Lookit the sign.”

“What good is it? I get comfortable, get my feet to feeling again, and now I can’t have my smoke?”

“Go out.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eric, snarling again, his stable friendliness all gone. Worn off.

“Go outdoors.”

“Don’t want to. Need to keep my feet warm.”

“Besides, another fifteen minutes, they’ll close the doors. Save it for morning. You don’t wanna go out and have them close all your stuff in here, and you outside.”

“Do I have to come over there?” This sounded like a real threat. “A man needs his sleep.”

“What good is it, can’t have my smoke?”

“You make one more whine, and you’ll eat that fag.”

“Let him go. Bag’ll get him, that’s for sure, and good riddance.”

Nicole stopped in her pacing along the divide of the room. Who said that?

“Bag?” she said, and her own voice sounded so strange to her, so alien to her now that she wanted to stuff it back down her throat.

“Shut the fuck up.” Eric sat up.

Meg’s night assistant, Joe, went over, made some low-pitched conversation with the man who’d been rolling his own and Eric. After he’d gone, Nicole started over there, her legs shaking.

“Eric,” she said, soft, some instinct knowing she had to approach him first. “It’s Nicole. My name is Nicole.”

You give a man your name and you give him power. If you call him by his name and don’t give him yours, you put him in your power and he will be angry; on some level he will resent whatever you want. She’d heard that from Mom years and years ago when she was barely big enough to go to school.

He didn’t yell. Instead the big harsh voice answered her, grating.

“Hi, Nicole. You let a man sleep."

Review

Watch the Shadows had just the right amount of creepy atmosphere to keep me reading but it wasn't until I had read the first half of the book that I got really invested. But even then it wasn't an easy book to read, it was slow at times and had so many different character's, I couldn't keep up with all of them. Although, I will admit that the shadow part of the story was what kept me invested in it, but other than that, nothing else captured my attention.

I couldn't connect with any of the character's. I felt detached in a way just reading the story but not really caring what happened to the character's. Which I know in any story isn't good, but that's how I felt.There were so many POV's, that I felt a bit overwhelmed but I suppose it all depends on the person reading the book if they enjoy multiple POV's. As for me though I couldn't really get accustomed to it.

Isla Vista, California is where the book's setting took place and where bad things are happening. People are going missing more than usual and there are odd shadows being seen but played off as a trick of light and nothing more. This is where the story gets interesting, no one knows what's going on except Nicole a teenager who has a theory of what's happening but she's not sure she believes it herself......This book sure knows how to creep you out, although its more of a suspenseful thriller than a horror book. It wasn't until I was close to the end that this book had me unable to put it down.

I recommend this to anyone who loves a book about things that not only go bump in the night but also during the day.

Rating: 3 Stars

I received an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Praise for 'Night Must Wait':

“'Night Must Wait' is a knockout. Robin Winter really delivers the goods with her twisting tale.”-Norb Vonnegut, author of The Trust “The world Robin Winter takes us to in 'Night Must Wait' is not the fantasy of Dorothy and Toto, no longer in Kansas; it is the scary, all too-real Africa.”-Shelly Lowenkopf, author of The Fiction Writers’ Handbook "Readers never know when they pick up a novel if the story will become so compelling that they are taken away to that magical place where one finds oneself inside the world of the book's characters, conscious of little else. 'Night Must Wait' did this for me. I read, forgot that I existed."- Gina Rose St John, Amazon Reviewer "Robin's way around a sentence is nothing short of gorgeous. The beauty of her prose only highlights the tragedies of war and betrayal. In an era when women were still relegated to wife or teacher, Robin's characters want, and get, more in ways both shocking and violent. I might not want to go to war torn Africa, but I do want to go on more adventures with Robin."- Kathleen O'Donnell, Amazon Reviewer

Praise for 'Future Past':

"Robin Winter's 'Future Past' is an original, meticulously crafted science fiction tale that blends the fantasy of Pinocchio and the hero's journey with elements of time travel, redemption, and a post apocalyptic world that brings readers to a satisfying, yet unexpected conclusion."- Matthew J. Pallamary "Truly imaginative, unique, and gripping -- I really really liked it! Robin Winter has a gift for inventing a world we'd be interested in saving, characters we'd be enriched to meet, and ideas about the human condition we'd be wise to ponder."- John Foran "Winter shows the strength and versatility of her writer's voice in 'Future Past'. Published shortly after her debut novel Night Must Wait, in which the setting offers a strong sense of place as a separate character, the science fiction themes of 'Future Past' haunts the reader long after the book is finished. Her first person approach with Ash gives chilling insight into a man-made world with apocalyptic consequences. Winter's prose is crisp and her pacing sharp, giving fans a science fiction a thrill that is worth the spooky ride."- Gretel Russell

About Robin Winter:

Robin Winter first wrote and illustrated a manuscript on “Chickens and their Diseases” in second grade, continuing to both write and draw, ever since. Born in Nebraska, she's lived in a variety of places: Nigeria, New Hampshire, upper New York state and now, California. She pursues a career in oil painting under the name of Robin Gowen, specializing in landscape. Her work can be viewed at Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara or on-line at www.sullivangoss.com/Exhibits/RobinGowen2012.asp Robin is married to a paleobotanist, who corrects the science in both her paintings and her stories. She's published science fiction short stories, a dystopian science fiction novel, Future Past, and Night Must Wait, a historical novel about the Nigerian Civil War. You may contact Robin or read her blog at: http://robinwinter.wordpress.com, or on her website: www.robinwinter.net Twitter: https://twitter.com/winterobin13 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robin.winter.144734?ref=ts&fref=ts