Nina refuses to accept the role of passive victim after being sexually assaulted. She becomes obsessed with an online vendetta that risks her job, her friendships, and her sanity.
Eric thinks, if anything, he’s too nice. But when he takes advantage of a stranger he is forced to confront the kind of man he really is.
The Shadows We Cast is a dark novel about consent and control that unsettles ideas about victims and villains.
Happy Sunday readers, and welcome to my second blog tour post of the day!
I was thrilled to be asked to open the tour for Sarah Tinsley’s The Shadows We Cast, that’s due to be published in ebook and paperback THIS WEEK! You can purchase yourself a copy directly from the publishers, SRL Publishing, here. Thanks to both the publishers and author for sending me out a gifted electronic copy of this book in preparation for the tour.
The Shadows We Cast is a contemporary fiction read and one of the books in the #BreakingTheSilence collection that SRL Publishing has to offer. We begin with an opening chapter that already has you on edge, Nina is recovering, recovering from something horrific when an unknown character barges into her day and strikes fear into her. It’s with this opening chapter that we get a taste of the seat edging tension of this novel.
The Shadows We Cast is split into dual narratives, our female protagonist Nina who has become a victim of sexual assault, a traumatic experience that is held upon her shoulders, one that unravels into obsession as she aims to understand what happened to her, whatever it takes. Our other narrator is Eric, a lad who has had this experience with a stranger, a sexual encounter that has given him confidence but as issues around sex and consent begin to become raised within the storyline, Eric is faced with the reality of his actions.
Sarah has written an important, gut wrenching novel, filled with poignancy and harrow. As the threads begin to become untied within the plot, we are met with each character’s collision of themes, the trauma that lays under the surface of each story for different reasons. I found the writing to be evocating and captivating, chapters written with such skill and careful sensitivity to the arising issues, but also leaving the reader with something to think about!
I’d HIGHLY recommend adding The Shadows We Cast to your TBR, it’s an important and powerful tool and source of literature to help educate and combat issues in which it involves! Bravo Sarah!
I’ve included a small excerpt from Eric’s first chapter in The Shadows We Cast:
Imagine if someone had walked in. He could have at least tied his belt around the shelves and the handle. He pats down the tuft of hair at the back of his head, trying to dislodge the problem of locking the door. What is he supposed to do now? Nothing was said, it just happened. Maybe there were people that did things like this all the time.
It will look suspicious, how long he ’s been missing . Someone might have seen him loping up here, intentions so sound. He’d just come up to check she was ok, that was all. There was shouting after she’d gone upstairs with Will. He’d gone to Mojos, to find a “less mental one,” he’d said. She never came back down. He checks his watch. Only 2: 15. How can such a small number of minutes have passed? The back of his neck prickles, there’s sweat on the short hairs.
He scrubs a hand over the skin, trying to remember how it escalated. One moment there was silence and darkness, his hands unsure. The way she was lying, so open and available to him. Then this heat and pressure, a need he didn’t know he had in him. Had she felt it too? Somewhere in it all he got muddled. She’d made a noise, over and over. That was a good sign, it had to be. He’s never been left trembling like this before. Not even with Bea. Could he ask for her number?
What do you think?! Are you adding it to your TBR??
The Reading Closet 