Finalist, Young Adult Fiction category, 2015 National Indie Excellence Book Awards.
Shade: Girl on a hero’s journey, going from smart-ass to badass.
Thanks to her offbeat mother, Shade’s full name is Galactic Shade Griffin. Having a name like that while being the new girl in school is pretty much catnip for bullies. The summer before Shade’s junior year of high school, her mother breaks up with … school, her mother breaks up with yet another boyfriend and moves them once again to a new town.
This time, they move into a dilapidated old house where Shade has an entire attic bedroom to herself—at least until she discovers it’s haunted by the ghost of a teenaged boy named Brandon Yates. When Shade’s best friend goes missing, her life becomes even more complicated. With the help of Brandon who’s struggling with his own issues in the world beyond, Shade faces the question of whether or not she has what it takes to become a true hero.
Although this novel deals with a number of serious issues—drug and alcohol abuse, cutting, and disturbing world events—it’s primarily a novel about a teenaged girl finding out who she really is and that she’s capable of so much more than she ever thought possible.
SHADE is Book #1 in a YA Paranormal Mystery / YA Urban Fantasy series.
”…a very entertaining book, not a single dull moment. Hats off to the author for writing such an amazingly cool teenage mystery novel with a paranormal twist.” – Aditi Saha, Goodreads Reviewer
“As beautiful as the eye-catching cover ‘Shade’ is a sensational, awesome story of unforgettable premise and remarkable depth of mind-blowing epicness! Fans of YA fiction will be dazzled by this debut.” – Lucinda Fountain, Goodreads Reviewer
“This book is enthralling, very easy to read and relate to, and discusses issues without patronising the reader. Brilliant, another gem in Marilyn’s crown.” – Rachel Dove, Amazon Author and Reviewer
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What a great book! Full of teenage angst and social issues, but in a very personal way written in a way that reaches out and grabs your attention. Read throughout the night — just could not stop. Shade is so inspirational to me, she has gone through so much and yet remains strong. The world building is excellent, the character development is excellent, but most of all: the people are dead on (pun intended), I look forward to reading the next book of the Shade Series.
Shade (Shade Series, #1), my first read from author Marilyn Peake. Enjoyable, tightly woven & well-written. “I received a free Kindle copy of this book and I’m voluntarily leaving a review.” The gifting of this book did not affect my opinion of it. Now I need to read Shade and the Skinwalkers (Book 2 in Series). (RIP Marley January 20, 2014 – July 24, 2018).
An exciting story with engaging characters, also suitable for younger, high school- and YA-age readers. There is very little sex, only references to it. There are disturbing topics concerning drug use, addicted family members, self-cutting, human trafficking, and babies for sale. These topics are often encountered by high school students and perhaps this book will give some perspective on coping strategies. Shade is not interested in romance at all. There is a lot of dysfunctional family tension in her life; her mother is an alcoholic and drug user, quite irresponsible, leaving boyfriends to move to a new town. Some of Shade’s friends and schoolmates also suffer in dysfunctional families or have psychological issues, despite appearances to the contrary. Once the mystery gets fully underway, Shade has an extreme amount of worry, stress, uncertainty, and self-doubt. Fortunately, she has several new friends to help her.
She’s a high school student, named Galactic Shade Griffin, from a broken home. She starts at a new school in a new house. She finds her room is haunted, makes friends with other misfits at school. Puts up with her mother’s alcohol and drug addiction. Makes friends with the ghost who haunts her room, a boy her age. She starts getting her life in order until her friends disappear. That’s when the stress really starts. She, her friends from school, the ghost and his ghost family, and a psychic help solve the mystery and become heroes to the school and town.
I received this book free as an Arc copy in return all I had to do is give an honest review. Incredible World building, and characters are very well-developed, and believable. Also there are subjects talked about that could cause triggers. Such as mention of human trafficking, sex slaves, gang rape, forced abortion, drug abuse, and alcohol addiction. World building was very well developed as was the storyline and plot. Heat scale was a zero, and violence was mild the reason why I gave the violence a mild rating was because the triggers were not gone into detail. This storyline revolves around a young girl in high school who becomes involved as an administrator in her school forum. In the process two of her friends also administrators in the forum decide to become private investigators to solve a mystery. Psychics, ghost, and Magic all play a part in the plot of this book. I highly recommend this book to those of you who enjoy these type of books. I love this book and I cannot wait to read the second book in the series. It’s going to have to wait because I have another book I have to read and review, and it is going to kill me because I really did like this character in the series. I can hear it calling to me even now.
This book deals with issues that are current. It’s subject is enlightening, I learned from this book. It is a good story and not a happily ever after false ending story. I recommend this book.
At first, I thought it was just an entertaining high school teenager’s story but soon there was serious issues that caught my attention. Shade, the protagonist, had conflicts she didn’t know how to deal with. Through the stories she wrote she was channeling her need of get noticed, be part of a whole and to be important to somebody. The Paranormal elements added interesting details and descriptions that intrigued me. Liked how she overcome her fears of not belonging, the negativity that surrounded her mind and became more confident with high expectations of herself. A YA story from the POV of the protagonist that I liked.
I really enjoyed this book. It was well written and easy to follow. It took a few chapters but I did start really liking the MC Shade. The book covers a tough subject from real life as a main storyline in the book. (not saying because you don’t know at the beginning and don’t want spoilers). To me the side characters fit well with the main character and their interactions were smooth and believable. I liked it enough I have already started the second book.
The book was mostly a positive for me. There were two issues I did have though. One, I did not like the cursing especially with the Lord’s Name. To be fair, there is not a lot of cursing in this book, just using the Lord’s Name with them bothers me and of this type there was only 2 – 3 settings with it. I know now days most fiction books have cursing, but it is not needed and does upset a lot of people. The other issues was storyline related. about 90% of the book speed of storyline and flow was perfect, then at the very end everything just rushed to finish. This is not a cliffhanger the story does finish, just with little details or explanations. I would have liked the end more fleshed out, especially with the subject matter she was covering. More details on how it affected the characters.
I highly recommend this book to anyone that likes real life issues covered (very well) in their fiction books. I am happy that I read this book and would read it again.
This , being book 1 of a series, has a lot of setting up to do. Shade feels as if she had to bring up herself, because her mother is the type who runs away from any problem, either with drugs and booze or actually moving to a whole new town. What her family is actually using for money is never quite explained, but hopefully the birth father is giving them enough child support to explain Shade’s very middle-class spending habits. Peake’s target audience is the young adults who can afford cellphones and ebooks, so the heroine must be among them. Meanwhile she is surrounded by astronomically wealthy neighbors and huge swathes of empty foreclosed housing, making one think it might be Detroit, except no snow in the winter. Let’s face it, it’s a fantasy, despite the alluring suburbanite details sprinkled in to snag our sympathies. The fairy godmother-like psychic she meets is just as dreamy as the ghosts she befriends in her most recent home.
The love-hate with her mother gives a credible excuse for headline-worthy human trafficking mystery to uncover. We cringe along with Shade and can’t trust her mom any more than she can. But instead everything turns out well, if not for everyone, then at least for our heroine. That’s the really incredible part.
It’s a feel-good fantasy in the end and I’ll read on.
Shade is a book that I really, really wanted to like. The story of Galactic Shade Griffin starts off promising, a jaded teenager who’s been shuffled from town to town by her addict mother who has relocated again in an attempt to start fresh after another in a series of bad relationships. The start is strong, new town, new people and very prominent elements of what could be great YA novel. There is a creepy old house, dreams of ghosts and talk of fairies but nothing comes of it.
Instead, it devolves into a hodgepodge of ideas and plot points that are disjointed and confusing. Many of the characters are one dimensional, Shade herself never seems to grow beyond being ill-tempered pouty and awkward. She has no sense of remorse of even sadness for her mother who is in turn sympathetic and frustrating. Even the peripheral characters who all seem mature and capable in the beginning end up being just a level above the Scooby gang. Even their references are outdated.
There is also no feeling of immediacy or tension in a story that covers to many serious issues. So many issues in fact, that it feels as if the author took all of the most buzzworthy topics affecting teens and tossed them into the story without any real rhyme or reason. In the end, Shade reads as a gumbo of good ideas with no real focus on any.
Galactic Shade Griffen is a normal teenage despite her unusual name. She has a troubled mother. Despite that Shade finds an outlet through writing. There is more to it that leads to the paranormal. I thought the staircase a bit slow but I am determined to read the next installment in the series. I got this book through storyorigins and this is my voluntary and honest review.
I was provided a free copy to review. I started reading and couldn’t put it down. Great pace to the story and perfect mix to the suspense and paranormal.
Sometimes I’m bummed about Kindle Unlimited. When I discover that Marilyn Peake has a new series out, and then find out that – based on its first book, Shade – the Shade Series is going to be a pretty darn incredible urban fantasy, it’s a bummer to find it not on KU. Oh well, I will still be addictively following this one. It’s just that good. I expect that anyone else would too.