WINNER: 2020 Australian Shadows Award, NOVEL

Nick Wheeler’s subject matter has always been controversial. A venerated photographer motivated to capture the malign elements of human existence – suicide as illusion and artifice – his career is suddenly in tatters after a near-fatal work accident plunges him into a coma.

A sleep paralysis victim, Nick’s descent into oblivion ushers him back to where it all began: winters spent in the rugged foothills of Deception Pass. It was here, among the secret grottos and old-growth forests, where ancient forces first showed their hand: Shadow Men capable of paralyzing the body and manipulating generations into serving an otherworldly agenda.

To survive, Nick must confront the past ... and the Shadows, evermore monstrous disguised by human faces.